Resident Evil Outbreak : Necropolis
by Bittersweet Nectarine
Summary: The sleepy midwestern city. Raccoon City. Peaceful, safe, and the best kept secret in the eyes of an international corporation. As the unknowing citizens prepare for another quiet night, a sinister nightmare is just beginning...
1. Outbreak

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 1

September 26th, 1998, 10:45 PM

The dark alleyway was the only place that had a sign of noise emitting slightly from it. The water running steadily under the storm drains continued their perpetual flow and the many bottles and bits of garbage seemed to make the flow halt for the smallest of seconds. The garbage cans were overflowing, a sign that the owner of the next door bar was getting lazy, and there were rats lurking around. If one had been in the alley, one might have seen the shape of a crumpled figure sitting in a bunch of bags. They also might have seen that the rats had a bigger purpose of being there, doing something much more disgusting.

Teeth gnawing around through the flesh, scraping at the bones, carrying away scraps of the once living being. The rats looked feral, daunting, foreboding. Something was not right in Raccoon City. And it was about time that someone would find out…

------

Everyone in Jack's Bar was enjoying himself or herself that night. The subtle tones of the music and jazz were just what could sooth the common stressed soul and that's just what the people had come to do. The usual customers were there, even the ones who had blacklist tabs, and talking could faintly be heard over the television.

It was set up in the corner of the room, talking of a football game, which occasionally, someone would pay attention to. It had something to do about the Raccoon City Sharks having an incident on the field. It involved raving mad fans.

The bar was dark except for dim glowing lights and the neon tube of the television. Some of the customers sat at the barrels that were used as tables in the front; others just sat at the bar and drank. There was a clicking in the room coming from the heels of a waitress, delivering drinks around the room, and greeting people out of the bar as they left. Whatever they did, they never seemed to care, just as long as they were enjoying themselves.

A cop, eyes full of flame, sat at the counter, drinking away what seemed like worries in the past. He sighed and looked at the other people at the counter. On his right were two men. One of them, a man about his age, drinking quietly. He had come here before and he wasn't much of a stranger to the cop's eyes. He wore a weathered plumber's suit, though he looked nothing like the stereotypical "buttcrack".

He could tell that this guy had just as much troubles as most of the people here could have. He looked back to his drink, took another swig, and then looked to the end of the bar.

The man on the far right was about eight to nine years older and his face looked depressed. He looked restless and he didn't have a drink. He sat there, sighing to himself once in a while. He would occasionally look at the waitress who would walk by, making sure everything was tidy and in place. There were usually more people there, but it was a slow night, with the football game and everything.

The cop felt like consoling the guy, but decided not too. He was just too damn tired. He ran a hand through his flipped brown hair and sighed himself, taking the last swig of his drink.

The door opened and in walked a young woman. Her face was filled with shyness and her glasses covered her sorrowful eyes. She slowly walked into the bar and slipped past the many bunches of people sitting around. She spotted a bathroom and quickly walked into it passing the waitress while doing so. She sighed as she got to the other side; her coat and skirt slamming against the door as she leaned on it.

She looked around, still scared about what she was doing. It wasn't like she wanted to hide; she just didn't know what the heck was going on around her. She was sure that whatever senses were working at the moment were the ones she should listen to.

Looking at the small unoccupied stalls, she went into one and closed it behind her, making sure it was locked. She hated the feeling of someone watching her and it seemed to haunt her wherever she was. She rummaged though the bag, looking for what she had stuffed in it minutes earlier.

She stepped out of a stall, minutes later, and her outfit was slightly different. She wore a green coat, a black tee, and a pair of jeans. Her loafers had been replaced with small brown shoes and her face looked a bit more relaxed.

She walked over to the mirror, took off her glasses and set them down on the sink counter. She pulled a backpack off the floor and unzipped a small pocket, which had been concealing a pair of scissors. She then sighed and started to trim her hair.

----

The main room was still at a normal beat. The waitress walked over to the counter, carrying a platter of drinks for the woman typing on her computer. The woman was vigorously pressing each key with her fingers, hitting them with a precision that showed she was serious about her job. She finally smiled and took a drink of her newly poured liquor when she finished the typing.

"Finally!" she cried in relief as she swallowed the first sip. It burned with a celebrating sensation.

The waitress looked over at the woman, smiling at her for a second, than moving back towards one of the men at the counter. She had seen him somewhere before, but she just wasn't feeling any names or information coming up in her head. She was just about across the room when a small rat popped out from under the bar counter.

She shrieked and dropped her platter, which caused the security guard in front of her to turn around in astonishment. She then gasped and giggled a bit, for it had only been an accident. He smiled and she quickly began to pick up the pieces of the glasses.

The security guard looked at his partner who was just about passed out on the counter. He frowned, his face looking a bit mad, and put a hand on his partner's shoulder. He gently shook it and the man awoke to look up.

"Hey, Bob, you eatin' anything? Where's your mind at?" No answer.

The security guard just sat there and sighed with concern. He then looked back to his meal, not worrying about Bob anymore. It was soup, one of his favorites. He'd have been home eating his wife's cooking, but he wanted to take his friend to dinner to hang out with him and celebrate his last days before retirement.

The depressed doctor looked down at his hands, seeing many lines and creases in them. He knew that this was just normal, but he saw something deeper in his hands. They were hands that could help or destroy people, and he had made the mistake of killing someone today on accident. He was a surgeon after all, and he was bound to make mistakes. But he was so good at his job, why did fate have to come and nip at him and make him suffer? Not to mention the fact that his wife finally signed her half of the divorce papers. He coveted the thought of living alone at times, but then again… he was going to have to except it. He was already thirty-nine, and his life was about half-way over. He wasn't ever going to have a picture perfect life, and he would end up becoming one of these sad nobodies at the drinking hole. He looked at his watch.

"Almost eleven…" he mumbled, closing his eyes and lowering his head. He'd have to go home soon. Looking over at the waitress, her smile seemed to give him a light hope. She was so beautiful, she looked familiar, and he was sure she was as kind and gentle as a saint.

The waiter nearby was picking up various scraps from the leftover meals and drinks when the door opened making the usual bell noise. He looked up and saw a man with his face looking at the ground. A customer, perhaps, wanting rest like the others. But a closer inspection eluded the waiter of a serious problem.

He looked a bit drunk, or even hurt. His jacket was covered in a red liquid and there were sticky brown masses of something around his stomach area. His denim pants were ripped and his fingers were clenched and shaking. There was a terrible smell. Almost like a skunk shit on itself before dying.

The waiter glared at the man and whispered, " What the hell…?" He put down the platters he was carrying and walked over to the man. Standing silently, he scanned him from the bottom up. He looked severely wounded in several places.

"Sir… are you okay?!"

Almost suddenly, the man raised his head. His face was lined with abrasions and was covered in blood and grease from what the waiter could tell. The man lurched slowly towards the waiter.

The security guard sat, looking at the stranger.

"What's going on?" the security guard asked. "Who is this guy?"

At that moment, Bob fell out of his seat and landed on the floor. The security guard rushed off his seat to help his friend.

"Damn…" He lifted his friend up off the ground. "You alright?"

Bob didn't reply, but instead, he groaned. The security guard looked back at the doorway for a split second.

The man in front of the waiter showed his teeth. Something wrong was in the air. The waiter felt a shiver down his spine, and it seemed that the man's teeth were mirrors into a horrible fate.

"You need medical attention! Let me call an ambulance!"

With out another second passing, the stranger lunged at the waiter. His teeth, soared, bit right into the unsuspecting waiter's neck and bit down hard into his warm flesh. The waiter sprung into a fit and felt his neck twist and sputter.

The waiter screamed in pain.

"What are you doing!?"

The man was shoved off of the waiter. With a gather of strength, he slung himself forwards, pushing and punching the attacker out the door. The waiter followed quickly with a slam. His fingers shook so much; he could barely lock the door.

After he had finished his last task, he settled on the floor with his neck profusely bleeding. It looked bad. But that wasn't the half of it.

He started to feel woozy and he passed out, clutching at his neck. He lay there, frantically shaking with his eyes wide open, slid back into his sockets, and fear still held in them.

----

The girl in the bathroom was just getting finished with her hair. It looked nice and she was happy with it. She set down the scissors and put on her backpack. She looked at the new her and smiled. She then went to put her glasses back on when a strange noise popped out of nowhere.

Standing in the awkward silence for a moment, she finally looked down at a small ventilation graft in the wall. It started to make weird noises until finally…

"NO!!!" She screamed. A pair of arms popped out of the vent. She backed up slowly, not making too much noise, hoping it would go away.

"Help me!" she screamed, and she quickly flew back into the stall she had come out of.

----

Meanwhile, back in the main part of the bar, the doctor kneeled next to the body of the waiter. The waiter still had on the partly rusted nametag that read "Will".

"He's already lost too much blood. He's gone into shock. I'm afraid he has a slim chance..."

The waitress kneeled next to the body and started to feel tears run down her now rose colored cheeks. She looked at the doctor, the man even more depressed, and lowered her head.

"Will, no! We have to call for help!"

"Yes, hurry!"

Just then, a slamming and pounding could be heard at the door. Everyone snapped their heads around to see something they were not prepared to lay eyes on.

Faces, all covered in masses of red and slime smashed up against the glass, almost sickeningly begging to be let in. They were all terrifying, and it made all of the customers loose any strand of thought they had running through their minds. They drifted away from the unsafe windows.

The cop raised his gun, aiming at any of the faces that displeased him. The outsiders were moving towards the door, slamming against it, attacking the once mellow bar.

The cop then noticed something outside. The attackers were turning around, trying to grab something. It was a person running away from a group of the things. The figure stopped in front of the bar, realized something, then made their way to the bar's door.

"Help me! Please! GET THIS DAMN DOOR OPEN!"

The cop, who had been standing in fear at the counter, rushed towards the door and panicked to get the lock in the upright position. He let the man fling himself inside and then the cop quickly slammed the door, shoving it in place while the other side was bombarded with more of the mindless druggies. They moaned and slammed against the window, displeased.

"Ahhh! You saved me… I was just minding my business when a bunch'a guys jumped me! I was totally cornered 'till I saw this place."

The cop looked down at the man. His skin was a burnt caramel color, his hair bleached blond and short. He was wearing the uniform of the many subway agents of Raccoon. He was definitely not the brave type from the looks of it.

"You have a name?"

"Ah, we don't know any of our names, now that you mention it, sir." The doctor stood up and looked towards the woman with the laptop. She had tried to use her cell phone to call for an emergency.

"The damn service is out… and I sure as hell ain't going out to find bars."

"And the regular phone…?" The waitress shakily questioned.

"Is…" the security guard took the phone from his ear, "… is out…"

The security guard's friend Bob was now back in his stool, resting quietly on the counter. The security guard put the receiver back on the hook and sighed, rubbing his bald, brown-skinned head.

"Is he alright?" The officer motioned to Bob.

"As far as I know, he probably had a drink too many…"

"Something seriously wrong is happening…. We have to get in contact with the authorities!" The woman in the suit cried.

The cop looked at the woman with the phone, her comment making him laugh sadistically.

"I am the authorities… and I have no shit what's going on! I'm sure that the rest of my team will be down in this area soon. Probably a gang riot in the area or maybe…"

"Maybe not! I swear those things were eatin' people! If ya' don't believe me, go out there fer' yourself!"

"Excuse me, this would be easier if we knew who we were…"

"Yes, my thoughts exactly," The doctor agreed, putting his yellow jacket over the body of Will. He saw the yellow fabric start to fall and form around the man's shape. He felt a cold shiver down his spine. His fear was broken up by the heroic yet cocky voice of the cop.

"Well, then," the cop began, "Kevin Ryman," he pointed to his badge, "…officer of the RPD."

"Well, Officer Ryman," the phone woman blurted, "I'm Alyssa Ashcroft, a reporter. I like big stories, so I'm sure this little number here will get me big sweeps."

Everyone seemed to be scared except for her. Maybe she was so sly and reckless that she didn't care about the fact that she could be in potential danger.

"I'm Cindy. Oh, Lennox. Cindy Lennox."

"You're a waitress." Kevin blurted rudely.

"Well, this is a half-time job. My other half is working at a clinic nearby."

"That's where I've seen you…! Oh, pardon me." The doctor rubbed his forehead with a newly unveiled handkerchief. He looked at everyone with a hard stress and nodded. "I'm George Hamilton. I'm a surgeon at Raccoon Hospital. I'm afraid that I'm not as good at my job as I used to be." He stared with sad eyes at the yellow coat over Will's dead body.

"Maybe we should hurry up, yo! This might not exactly be a safe place!" It was the subway worker. George was once again taken away from his sorrowful thoughts.

"Hey, I'm the cop here," Kevin blurted, "I make the orders!"

"Aw, shit… well…"

"You got a name, kid?" Kevin mumbled.

"Jim… Chapman. I really think we should get movin', officer-"

"Would you shut up!?" Alyssa had her hands over her ears. "I can't think with your blabbing!"

"Help me!" a small voice screamed from another room. The quiet plumber, who had been standing unnoticed near the staff room door, looked over towards the ladies room. He then realized someone had walked in there moments before this had all happened. He rushed for the door and quickly went inside to find the source.

"Ew! Did he just go in the girly room?!" Jim cawed.

"I'm afraid to say yes," Alyssa mumbled.

"I did hear a scream come from there. Maybe we should help?" George said with resilience to the man's going in the bathroom.

"I'll be the first to decide that!" Kevin grinned. "I'll go check it out; you stay here and find a way to get out of this room. Cindy, you work here right? Help out too. Whatever's going on in there will be taken care of by the time I'm back."

"Al-alright…" Cindy silently replied.

"Understood," nodded George.

"I guess that means Mr. Boy-in-Blue thinks he's boss, huh?" Alyssa smirked. "Well, I'm not taking orders from any man. I'd rather keel over as one of those things. I'll take care of it for you. You're supposed to protect and serve right? Then do your job."

"H-hey! No, get back here!" Kevin barked.

But it was too late; Alyssa had already descended down the hall and into the women's room. He kicked the ground and cursed, finding that the more he stood there, the louder the bashing at the windows got. He looked to the windows to curse at the people outside when he noticed the barrel-tables.

"Hey, George, help me with these, will you? And Jim, go help Cindy look for the way out. Security dude, keep your friend tight."

----

It hadn't been too long before the quiet, tall, dark-haired David King looked at the single closed stall in the bathroom. He could hear whimpering and crying. It was obviously someone young, for it sounded too high to be an older man or woman.

"Excuse me, anyone here?" He compassionately said, even with his scratchy-low voice.

"Don't come! Go away!"

It was a younger girl. She was freaked out from the sound of it. The man looked over at the sinks. There was a pile of hair in one of them and some glasses lying next to it.

"Don't cry."

"… Huh?"

"Just open the stall or I'll have to leave you here."

"O-okay…"

There was a clicking noise and the stall opened slowly. Out walked the girl who had walked in the bathroom before, only she was wearing a different outfit, and from the looks of it, had cut her hair. He had seen her smile a bit when she realized he wasn't going to bash down the door anyway and she walked over to him, trying to direction herself away from the ventilation system in the room.

"What's going on? I need to know because I don't want to be here…" she squeaked keeping an eye on the now empty vent.

David scratched his head. He wasn't sure at all, but he had a girl at his feet who looked so scared and sickly that he didn't want to scare her anymore. He kept a gruff demeanor and sighed.

"Some riot or something. We have to get out of here."

Just then, the door opened. The girl flew back behind David and David raised his arm as if he would strike whatever came in.

"Ahh! Hold up there, tough guy!"

It was Alyssa, grinning as if she had found the prize of the world. She walked around David so she could get a good look at the other figure that had been behind him.

"Damn, just a little girl."

"…"

"I'm kidding, m'kay? You need some chill pills, girl."

"Hey," David asked, "What's going on?!"

"Not a clue. Zip. Nadda. So, you gonna come 'outta here?

"Yes."

"Good. What's your name, big-guy?"

"David."

"And yours?"

"Yoko…"

"So, we got ourselves a Yoko n' a David. Mine's Alyssa." She motioned to them to come on, "Now let's get the hell 'outta here."

----

"Hey! Someone help me!"

George turned around to see that the security guard was searching behind the counter where he hadn't been able to see before. He quickly took notice of this and went over to help.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you there before. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to find something to help my friend wake up."

"Hmm, water. That's the best. Is there a water tap?"

"As far as I can see, yeah."

"Good, now being that over to me… uh," George stuttered, as he didn't know the security guard's name.

"Mark Wilkins. My friend is Bob Park, and he's over here."

Mark had moved Bob from the countertop slumber to the ground where he was lying down straightly. George poured a glass of water and carried it over, gently giving it to him to drink.

"Is he alright?" George asked. He hadn't been paying attention to what was going on earlier in the bar.

"I think he got sick… but then again, he's so cold."

"Hmmm, well, we have to keep him warm. Leave his coat on."

"M'kay. Will do."

"In the meantime, we should move him away from the door and the windows. Let's get him behind the counter."

"Hey! Did you all miss me?" It was Alyssa, with the two newcomers trailing behind her.

"No, but get over here and help out," Kevin snarled with an "I'm better then you" look on his face.

"No way, like I said: no orders from you!"

"Excuse me, miss," Yoko quietly began. "I don't mean to be rude, but shouldn't we be helping?"

"Ugh, fine," Alyssa then pointed to Yoko, "…but only because SHE said so."

"Whatever. Just make yourself useful."

"I found it!" Cindy suddenly cried with glee. Jim and she emerged from the storage closet in the hallway and she held up a shiny object. Upon closer investigation, it was the staff room key.

"There was a spare that Jack keeps in here when he loses his keys. I remembered it."

"Yeah, and I used my super item-sensing abilities to find it!" Jim jokingly announced. "You all knew I'd come in handy."

"Much obliged," George smiled. He was thankful that they had such a useful rag-tag crew.

"Great, now, let's get that door unlocked and ourselves outta' here!" Kevin shouted with a smug look on his face. He took another look at the front door, the bashing halted just a bit by the now barricading barrels in front of its wooden surface.

"Someone give me a hand!" Mark shouted as he tried to lift up Bob. David ran over, the rest of the people crowding around Cindy who was unlocking the door. David helped lift Bob up and support him.

"Thanks, son," Mark nodded to David.

"Yeah," David grumbled, with a fragment of kindness.

"Hey, come on, get your asses over here," Kevin waved. He then ran over and helped them out as they made it through the door. Looking back, they saw that the door was off its hinges and the barrels were the only thing between them and the people now.

"Shit, hurry!" Kevin slammed the door, frantically looked for something to hold it shut with, and shoved a small cabinet up against the door. "I hope this holds… now, let's strap on our seatbelts and get a move on!"

"Uh-huh," Mark grunted, heaving Bob up with David.

"Any of you have a smoke?" Kevin said with a forced smile.

"Hey! Over here!" Alyssa cried from the top of the stairs. She peeked her head out to grin at the four men still making their way upwards. "You wanna' know what we found?"

"Maybe," Kevin snorted.

"Shut-up and move it," David growled. The two instantly fell quiet, for David's voice could have been compared to that of an angry dog's hatred.

------

"So, I'm sure that if we go up these stairs, we'll be in the liquor storage. Then, from there, should be a sliding door that we can go through. Although, it may be locked, I'm sure that the keys are in Jack's office. He keeps spares of certain keys. I'm sure that it must be there."

"Why in the hell would it be locked, man?" Jim looked at Cindy with wide eyes.

Cindy sighed and then answered, "Kids kept getting into the storage room through the roof. They were illegally drinking and playing with the forklift. He decided to keep it locked."

"So, are you sure that this is the plan? 'Cus if you're wrong, sis, I'll be one angry lady," Alyssa mockingly threatened.

"Well, at least that's what I think we'll do. If it's alright with everyone else."

Cindy looked up from the floor. She was a bit scared that people might not listen to her.

The staff lounge had been a small safe room for about eight minutes. They had taken a pile of loose boards (from when Jack had been trying to fix the floors, according to Cindy) and nailed them to the doorway. Kevin, Alyssa, and David had done this. Meanwhile, Mark and George had been tending to Bob while Cindy, Yoko, and Jim had been going over the ways they could get out of there.

"Hmmm, sounds good to me," Alyssa sighed. "Not like I have much of a choice anyway."

"Alright," Kevin said as he walked up to the gathering people, "How should we do this?"

"I think we should get the injured up to the storage room. Then, we can have a few people go to Jack's office and look for the keys," Cindy said with confidence. "I can go both ways… I do have some medical treatment skills."

"We have one injured," Kevin reminded the bunch. "I think it'd be best if the people who don't have weapons could get up to the storage room and keep the base cleared until we get back."

"Weapons…?" Jim asked with a trembled look in his face.

"Hey, those guys killed a man down there," Kevin frowned, "And I'm not gonna go up asking for them to chill out and join us for beer."

"I'm in," David stepped up to Kevin. He had an iron pipe in his hand.

"Whoa, man, where'd you get that? I want one!" Jim muttered in awe.

"I'll help too. I trust that Bob's gonna be all right with the good doctor," Mark nodded.

"Thank you. I'm glad you have faith in me," George reluctantly smiled. Maybe he could make up for his earlier events by helping out. Then, George asked, "Cindy is there a first aid kit here, by any chance?"

"Oh," she blurted with a smile, "Yes! Thanks for reminding me. I haven't gotten to use it since I bought it. Darn Will was always cutting his fingers on broken glasses…" She felt melancholy hit her for a split second, but she quickly blinked it away. She couldn't change the past. It was her time now to help these people. For Will.

"I'll go get it," she continued, and then she headed to the locker room that neighbored the staff lounge.

Alyssa looked around and saw a refrigerator. She grinned widely and then opened it. She saw a few canned beers (how ironic), a thermos, some Tupperware with Cindy's name written on it, and of course, a cake… with the knife still in it.

"Yes! Bull's-eye! Count me in the weapons crew!" Alyssa held up the batter-covered knife and shut the fridge with her foot.

"Shit," Kevin muttered under his breath. "So, David, Mark, and I will go find the key. Cindy, you lead the rest up to the storage room. And Alyssa… whatever. Come if you ABSOLUTELY have to."

"Heh," Alyssa slyly smiled with rouged lips. "Would I pass up a chance?"

Yoko was completely confused at how the two of them could still have good humor in such a situation. She decided to help George out with Bob. Well, at least she had tried to help, but Jim suddenly came up beside her.

"Hey, you're…?" Jim smiled at Yoko. "I'm Jim."

"Yoko."

"Ah, like Lennon's girl, huh? Means 'child of the sunshine and ocean'… I think."

"I'm not sure. My mother was the full Japanese one in our family. My father was American."

"Oh," Jim embarrassingly scratched his head and saved himself, "it's a pretty name."

"Uh… thanks."

"Heh-heh, don't mention it, girl."

Yoko tried to smile back, but he was slightly making her uncomfortable. She quickly moved up the stairs, following George, Cindy, and the unconscious Bob. It was so strange, yet, she knew she could trust them.

To calm herself down, she tried thinking back to before she had even gotten into the bar, but she still had a headache. She remembered waking up at the small apartment, seeing her glasses on the nightstand and then the note that she assumed she had written to herself. It was something about how she was going in to talk to someone named Greg Muller, but she didn't remember much of even what it had said. That was when she realized she was still wearing a uniform of sorts.

"I'm so confused," she muttered, so softly, she could have sworn she hadn't said it aloud. Then, she focused on more of what had led her to this strange event. Putting on that coat, looking for some clue… realizing she had to get out of there.

She had looked around and found a coat, some clothes, and a backpack lain out for what would have been the next day.

"Oh well," she breathed with remorse.

"Excuse me," George looked at her with weary, yet, concerned eyes. "Are you feeling alright, miss? You look pale…"

"Yes, sir, I'm fine. My head just felt a little sore, that's all."

"Alright, but if you feel any other symptoms, don't be too shy to tell me."

"Okay."

George looked back down the stairs, hoping that he wouldn't have to look down them again. Shutting the door, he turned to the pile of confused people. Cindy sat next to Bob, scanning her eyes around the large, echo-ridden storage area. It had a tall ceiling and the walls and floors were made of concrete. Crates and liquor bottles decorated the walls and racks, setting for an array of discolored walls.

"So we jus' wait here? Then, we leave when the rest of the crew gets their asses back?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so, Jim."

"Well, I'm not sure 'bout you guys, but I think we should take some of this free time to go find anything we can use to get those ugly looking mo'fos away from us."

"Hmm, you may be right. Miss…"

"Yoko."

"Yoko, would you mind keeping Cindy and our silent friend, Bob, company?"

"No, I wouldn't"

"Alright, then let us go search the room over here, Jim."

"Aw-right-o! Not only will I getta' weapon, but I also gotta' doctor with me! Hah!"

George silently smiled in his mind, feeling new warmth in his weathered soul. It was crazy how such a strange occurrence could bring the most unlikely of companions together, but he was sure that this was only the beginning, and dwelling on thoughts wouldn't help him until he knew they were safe. And he wasn't the least bit annoyed when Jim kept calling him "the doctor".

----

"So, how the heck do we get this desk open? And what's this dumb painting for?"

"Would you stop toying with that? You'll probably blow up the stupid building."

"Hey, you know, that's a good idea! Just watch me."

"Piss off!"

Kevin and Alyssa looked behind them. David had a finger over his mouth, giving them the motion that he wanted them to shut up. The two of them had been looking at a little contraption they had found, a hole, in a painting. They hadn't a clue what the heck it had been for, but they were interested in finding out.

"Excuse me, I think I found something," Mark quietly called to the others.

"Goody, now I can get away from you," Alyssa shuffled away from Kevin.

David slowly strafed, hands tightly hooked around the iron pole, towards the locked glass door that mark was poised by. The two of them quietly took positions of caution and unlocked the door. Something was shuffling outside, and they weren't about to let whatever it was get the best of them.

"On three," Mark whispered.

"One," he looked over to Kevin, his hands clutching his police issued .45 Automatic. Even though the cop had looked tough before, beads of seat were shaking down his unshaven face. His almond shaped eyes had a tireless look, and the moisture of his body's heat ruffled his brown hair.

"Two," he took a look at Alyssa. Her once spunky tall and strong physique had now turned into a helpless and frightened fool, holding her knife near her, so she could strike fast. The strawberry blond hair drifted around her face as Mark saw that she was shaking.

"Three," he glanced at David quickly. The man was frightening. He had a wild and untamed look on his slender face. His hair was a glossy black and it was tied behind him in a ponytail. He wore a pendant around his neck, giving him a certain air of class.

At that last second, they opened the door. They were expecting a barge of attackers to come in and ransack the room, but to their surprise, nothing happened.

"Huh…?" Mark whispered under his tired breath. He motioned to David to follow him. Kevin stayed with Alyssa in the main part of the room.

As Mark quietly stepped out on to the balcony, he noticed the plants and over growth that showed that the owner had stopped caring. He turned his head towards the other side of the balcony and noticed that someone was sitting in a chair. He felt his heart start to beat faster.

With more quiet patters of his heavy body, her made it clear that he was going to approach the figure.

"Sir, excuse me… hello?"

Mark walked around the body slowly, as if he were in a bad horror movie inspecting a victim of a murder. He could have sworn time was moving in slow motion. The face got clearer and clearer with each step he took.

"Ah!"

The face was that of an older man, his face tired and sorrowful. Jawless.

"Shit! What the-" He turned away and felt his stomach get weak. He was now terrified and his mind started to reminisce on the days he had been commissioned in Vietnam.

David joined him and looked at the dead man. He didn't seem to cringe, but he did show a reaction to the man.

"Jack…" he mumbled. He then took Mark by the shoulder and led him away from the deformed corpse. He had already been killed and it was too late.

Kevin rushed to the door and looked at the two. Mark was definitely not looking good, and David was also stirred under his "bad-ass" exterior. Kevin decided that whatever was out there was definitely not a pretty sight.

"What? What happened?" Alyssa now looked terrified. She was so close to Kevin's body that he thought she might have been dating him. "What?! You're scaring me!"

"Jack's dead," David grumbled. He had a sorrowful look in his eyes.

"Wait, what? He's dead?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"No! Shit!" Kevin clenched his hands around the cold metal of his gun, "I can't fucking do my job right!"

Mark glanced back for a moment, but what he saw wasn't the slumped body of the withered man.

Standing, right there, a form. A person. And he didn't speak. He had no jaw.


	2. Run!

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 2

September 26th, 1998 11:23 PM

Jim looked over the broken bottles and assumed that somebody had bashed up the place before the whole messed up hater's festival. Nice Reebok shoes, cracking the shards of glass into even smaller pieces made Jim shudder every few seconds. George was definitely more brave then him. But he had wanted to impress Yoko, blindly, and jumped into finding a barrel.

"When did it all start?" he thought. Getting out of work and doing the rest of the daily crossword. He was off to go find some work pals and meet up with them at a nightclub. That had gone terribly wrong already. Not to mention he was hoping like hell they were doing alright. He could see his friend Ricky kicking in the heads of those things, shouting his ever so boastful "Booya" when he got a victory.

"Jim," George motioned. "Does this look useful?"

It was a key. It had a red tag on it. And a label. Forklift.

"This might be helpful… do you think we should keep it?" He asked with vigor.

"Hmmm, I trust you, Doc, but I dunno' if we need a forklift."

"Maybe so. I'll keep it. You can never be too sure." George slid the small object into his suit pocket and looked up at the rack of fine wines and champagnes. He could almost taste it, just as he had not too long ago for his spoiled wedding anniversary…

"Doc, should we get going soon?! I think those things might have gotten Alyssa and Kevin."

"David and Mark were there too. Mark and Kevin are trained officers in law. I wouldn't dwell too much on it. We must be prudent in these times."

"Uh-huh. You're like a dictionary, you know that? If I'd known you before this, I would'a been done with that crossword years ago."

"Hmmm?"

"Hey! A weapon!" Jim had moved the barrel to find a crowbar. It seemed to be used for opening up liquor crates. "Oh yeah! Gonna' get me some zombies dead!"

"Zombies…" George pondered on that word for a while. "Perhaps they are."

----

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!" Kevin was trying to hold the door shut. Alyssa was busy trying to unlock the door with a bent paperclip. She apparently thought she knew how to pick locks. "Could you go faster?!!"

"I'm going as fast as I can, you dumb-ass!"

The four of them had succeeded in getting the key. But not without troubles. They had re-killed Jack, found the key on his body, and gotten back to the Staff Room to find that the door was accidentally locked, the attackers were knocking down the barricaded nailed up door, and two zombies had emerged from one of the other branching rooms.

One of them was a young woman, her eyes glazed over with a white sheet of blankness and her arms reached out, a bloody palm trying to reach its prey. She made a moaning and it was sure that she was no longer in a state where she knew what she was doing.

David swung the pipe, a cold fearless visage plastered on his face. He hit the dead thing so hard that blood was splattering on his outfit. He didn't care; he was more worried about living and getting though the riot then getting a little red on his plumber's suit. The zombie's body fell to the floor, her muscles having spasms and shooting every which way and that before they started to stop.

"Take this, you freak!" Mark raised his gun and shot the second zombie. The recoil had made him jump back a bit, but then he got used to it and jumped right back into action once more. The once had been man was pushed backwards, a freshly opened crimson blossom now visible on his dirtied coat. He fell over, trying to reach out to Mark who was relieved that he had taken care of one of the bastards.

"Yes!" Alyssa heard a clicking noise. She quickly stuffed the paperclip in her pocket and grinned as she turned the handle of the door. Opening it, she was soon greeted by the cold stairway that would lead them up to safety. She was thankful that it wasn't filled with those monsters. "Over here!"

"Excellent!" Kevin shouted with a kind of cynical grin. He was genuine about it, but he was kind of pissed off that he hadn't been the one to save the day. Being a policeman never really issued up to what he had originally expected. He wasn't saving women from distress, busting crime lords, going undercover in the black market… that kind of movie stuff.

But then again, this zombie shit had pretty much convinced him that he was in a bad horror movie.

"Alright, let's get up there," Mark motioned. David nodded and wiped his iron pipe off quickly on the hard fabric of the couch. That was before he saw a newcomer enter the room.

"Will?" Kevin questioned noticing the figure too. He wasn't sure if he should be happy that Will was alive or not. There was just something about him that made Kevin tremble the wrong way. It twisted his guts. "Will, say something!"

Will stood motionlessly. He raised his head. His neck was covered in dried blood, but his face was completely ripped apart. He was…

"Oh fuck no!" Kevin screamed and raised his .45 revolver and squeezed the trigger.

"I'm… sorry," Kevin murmured. He felt a hard stone-like feeling developing in his heart. He started to question himself in many instances. "I'm a killer, aren't I?"

"Come on! Get over here! We don't have time!" Alyssa yelled from up the stairs. Kevin sighed, looking at the floor where the now fully diseased Will lay.

"Guess I don't have to pay my tab…"

But he didn't laugh at his own joke.

----

Yoko crawled around, hoping that she could find another match. She had seen someone make all kinds of weapons with fire in the movies, but she didn't know if it would actually work. There were alcohol bottles, a newspaper, some cloth rags, and her match she had found on accident.

"Moltov Cocktail."

"Excuse me?" Cindy asked kindly. Yoko turned to her and mumbled something. It was most likely a formula for how she would describe her idea to Cindy.

"Moltov Cocktail. It's an explosive, I think."

"Oh, no… wouldn't that be suicide in this room?"

"I wouldn't do it in this room."

"Hey-hey!!!" With a loud slamming noise, Jim re-entered the large room, grinning and holding a crowbar. "Yoko, my baby girl, lookie what I found!"

"Oh…" Yoko ignored his amiable words and noticed the fact that he now thought he was dangerous. He would be good off with that weapon because he didn't seem the type to pull a trigger. She stuffed the match in her pocket. "That's nice."

George soon appeared too, a worrying look on his face. He looked around for a moment, and then turned to Cindy and Yoko.

"I'm assuming they haven't made it back yet."

"Not true!" The second door opened, Alyssa sly grin appearing in the crack of the doorway. "Didn't think you'd be taking all the credit for getting this far, did you?"

"Alyssa!" Cindy exclaimed. She smiled, her pale and worried face now regaining color.

"Agh, these stairs need to end!" Kevin's voice. It was more pleasing then ever to the ears of George and the others. Soon, the eight of them were reunited in the small room.

"So, ready to kick some ass?" Alyssa asked, one of her thin slanted eyebrows raised.

George decided that there was no reason to tone his language a certain way. His wife, Jessica was no longer around to influence him to act certain ways. No forces to make him act like the perfect doctor anymore. He smiled, for the first time in a long time.

"Let's kick ass," he said with a bit of a lame tone. Everyone kind of chuckled, George's professional and educated visage starting to let go of him. "… and get the fuck out of this hell." He felt better inside. Like he let the bird out of the cage.

"Well, maybe we can get some curses out of you next," Kevin mocked to Cindy. She rolled her eyes, feeling a mood of hope.


	3. Rooftop Rumble

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 3

September 27th, 1998 1:39 AM

"God-dammit!" Kevin kicked the fence with his heavy boots. He felt the wires start to bend and unloosen from the long links of protection. "To think that learning how to cut wires with your bare hands should be one of the police training methods…"

"Hmm, do you think we should shoot it?"

"Hell no! I'm not wasting any of my magic bullets on a stinking metal fence!"

"Hurry! Hurry!"

Mark was busy firing his gun at a moaning figure, drifting from the shadows. He was also trying to keep the thing away from the other survivors as they made their way over to Kevin kicking the fence. Yoko held up Bob, hoping that taking the match, the bottles, and the rags would be helpful later, as she had concealed them in her backpack.

George was with Jim and Cindy, trying to find a way to barricade the door they had come from as legions of the dead were making their way up for some fresh meat.

David and Alyssa were standing near a door on the penthouse of the roof. Alyssa was using her trusty paperclip to pick the door. She was having a harder time with this one, taking it out and bending it into different shapes to see what worked.

"God, why do they make these things so hard to pick!?"

David coughed.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot… that's why."

"You really are naïve."

"You try picking the lock, you shithead."

David took a wrench out of his pocket and bashed the handle of the door. It fell off, leaving the door easy to open. Alyssa looked in awe.

David knocked his hand against the door and he stepped inside. Not without cursing, Alyssa followed him, and she found that the small room had something they needed.

"Kevin!" George called out. Cindy and Jim followed right behind him, both of them with the same feared look on their faces.

"Oh, shit, what now?!" Kevin moaned with a very annoyed look on his face. His eyes widened and he soon had a fresh look on his face. Mouth wide open, he screamed for George, Cindy, and Jim to run.

The door hadn't been barricaded. Unfortunately, about more then thirteen zombies were rushing in a wave near them, reaching out their arms, faces all deformed one way or another. Jim stopped running and turned around, blindly swinging his crowbar. He hit one of the zombies in the head, sending it sailing backwards into the giant crowd. His next crowbar swing slammed into the arm of another zombie, but got stuck when it lodged into a bone in its arm.

"Aw shit, help!" he screamed, flinging himself to the ground before a grimy palm touched his face. George picked him up by the coat collar and dragged him backwards as a pile of zombies fell where Jim had been moments before. "Thanks," he gulped as George quickly helped him to his feet.

"How the hell are we gonna get these things away from us?!!!" Kevin shouted.

Just then, a burst of explosion rang out from in the middle of the crowd of zombies. They all caught on fire and started to fall down, what was left of their bodies getting severely burned and damaged.

From the shards of fire and glass, a small figure rushed into view. Yoko stood, her arm still raised form throwing the moltov cocktail, and Bob was right behind her. She was smiling with relief as she quickly got over to where the others had all gathered.

"What took you so long, shorty?" Kevin smirked. He then walked over to her and ruffled her hair playfully. "Alright, let's regroup and get this fence knocked over."

Kevin turned to get started on knocking the reluctant fence over, but to his surprise, the fence was already on the ground. Alyssa and David both holding shotguns, smiled and waved to Kevin mockingly.

"Where the hell were you?" Kevin winced with an annoyance.

"Hey, Boy-in-Blue," Alyssa jokingly remarked. She pumped the shotgun, making Kevin just a little bit turned on by her strength. He blushed; knowing now wasn't the time for him to start having love thoughts. "Ready to rumble?"

"Y-yeah…" he gulped. He tried to hide his face by walking past the two of them and climbing up on the metal walkway that led from behind the huge neon sign to the edge of the roof. Cindy and George followed, Alyssa gaining a strange look when she saw that Yoko had some black smoke on her face.

"You look like you just ate a fire, girl," she stated with a twisted brow. Yoko didn't reply and instead, she started to help Bob up the metal walkway. Before she realized something was wrong. She reached for his shoulder, but she screamed when she saw his teeth attached to her small pale hand…

A gunshot rang out, and Yoko felt the teeth release and saw Bob fall to the ground, a bullet hole between his eyes. Yoko wanted to cry, but she knew that he hadn't been human at that point and that he was dead. She wanted to know where the gunshot had come from with curious eyes.

She saw Mark, his gun pointed at Bob's still body. He lowered the gun, dropping it after it was past his waist.

Yoko ran over, putting her arm around him, making him feel better as he felt remorse kick in.

"It's okay, it's okay…"

"No… he was… my friend."

"He was already dead. You probably did him a favor…"

Mark turned away from the young girl and looked over at the pile of dead burning bodies. They almost looked like they had been innocent, their bodies twisted in the most unnatural ways, as if they had been trying to escape too.

"Come on, we have to go! We don't know when they'll start coming again!" It was Alyssa, standing with shock next to David, who was silently staring.

Mark didn't answer, but he turned around and walked over towards the broken fence. Yoko picked up his gun and put it in her backpack. She looked at her hand. It was covered in blood and was starting to burn with pain more then she had realized before.

She hid it by pulling her coat sleeve down and ran to go with the others to safety.

As they made their way across the metal walkway, they could hear a police megaphone with an authoritative voice making orders.

"Citizens of Raccoon City," it spoke, "due to the riots in progress, this area will be closed off soon. Please proceed to a police checkpoint immediately. If you do not leave the area in time, we cannot guarantee your safety."

"Shit! My guys are here. But not without a warm welcome..." Kevin grunted. He stopped when he got to the gap in between the rooftops. Twitching his eyes about, he decided it was useless and started to back up for a jump across the two buildings. "Tally ho!"

He flew over the gap and barely made it, feeling only one of his feet on the roof before he tilted on to it, saving himself. "Who's next?!" He yelled looking at his crew of survivors.

They all jumped, one by one, some needing to be helped up. Kevin noticed someone was missing, but he soon saw the explanation when he saw the melancholy expression on Mark's face.

"So, we all good?" he questioned. They all nodded and the proceeded to the door that would supposedly lead them down to safety. Yoko stopped beside Kevin and noticed there was something on his mind.

"Are you… okay?" she asked with a concern in her dark brown eyes.

"Yeah, just thinking about something…"

"Are you scared?"

"N-no… of course not! Why would I be scared! Hah!"

"I am."

Kevin stood silently… another sweat bead forming on his brow.

"Huh? You don't look scared…"

"We all have to be strong, even if we are scared."

With that, she walked off, leaving Kevin to soak in the words she had told him. He silently followed them; leaving behind a cigarette he had been about to light.

-----

As David pushed the button of the elevator, he felt as if all the feelings in his hands had gone numb.

He thought deeply about panic. You lose the senses of your body and everything starts to tone to only one thing; run. He shook his limp hand, trying to make himself seem strong, like he always was, and he grunted when the others shifted in a quick orderly fashion into the elevator. It seemed there wasn't quite enough room.

"Shit… not enough room?!" Kevin snapped. He was at the back of the line, meaning he wasn't going to get to take a ride. He was left outside the elevator, standing along with David and Alyssa, as the others debated about what should be done.

"You guys go! We'll take the stairs," he bravely ordered.

"Uh, what?!!" Alyssa shattered. She wasn't about to throw herself into the pit of hell just so that some kids younger then her could flourish. "No way! I'd rather be stuck with Jim Chap-stick and Yoyo-Yoko then become zombie chow!"

Jim cringed at the mutilation of his last name, and Yoko felt a twist in her gut. Kevin sighed. Guess she wasn't as reckless as he'd presumed in the beginning.

"Then give me your shotgun," he instantly grinned with apathy.

"W-what? Hey- No!" she cried with a childish tone.

She finally gave up trying to be innocent and her sour look made the people on the elevator glad that she was going on the stairs. Yoko felt a bit bad, as she was the kind of person who felt empathy even for the worst of people.

----

George looked at his watch, amazed just a bit that it was still working. As the elevator doors shut, he shifted his eyes to see the small red numbers light up one by one. They displayed the floors they were traversing. He was sure that no matter what was at the bottom of the elevator, it was a lot better then the rest of what they had experienced.

He glanced over at Cindy. She looked uneasy, her hands tucked into her crossed arms. She must have been frightened, though her cheery exterior made her seem calm. There was something George sensed about her that reminded him of his wife. He shook the feeling off and got ready to leave the elevator.

Jim trembled, his hands wrapped around the support bar in the elevator. He also hated elevators, as he had gotten stuck in one as a child. He always had bad luck.

"Good thing I have this!" He smiled as he dug a hand in his pocket to retrieve a small nickel with the sides all worn. "Luck, my girl, don't'cha fail on me now!"

He flipped it, a small tingling noise the only spot of hope in the small transport. Yoko looked over at him. She almost smiled.

----

David pumped his shotgun, facing another twisted face as he spun around. He kicked it so it would fall over the side of the stairs and watched as it landed with a hard thud on the floors below. Not wanting to encounter it in once piece again, he aimed the short-range blast weapon and gave the monster a shot of lead.

"Hey! Quit playing with the things and let's get a move on!" Alyssa yelled, almost angry at David for wanting to shoot everything in sight. She worked her way down the stairs, breathing at a pace so she wouldn't slow down when she finally got to the end. She was an athletic woman; she always worked out at home and took daily jogs.

Now, she would finally get to use those skills she had worked so hard to build up. Another one of those things encountered her, almost blocking her path. She kicked a high-heel soled shoe at it, flinging it back where it had come from. She grinned, making a face at David.

David grunted and walked past her with a cold look on his gruff face. A strand of his hair bounced up and down as he made his way to the bottom of the flight. Kevin soon caught up with the two, tired from trying to hold the door shut while they cleared a path.

"You two done making out?" He joked. Alyssa stuck her tongue out.

"Barf," she cringed, kicking the door open. They had made it to the main lobby. That was when they saw the elevator open in the corner of their eyes.

George and the others came out, surprised to see that Alyssa, Kevin, and David were in the shape that they were before.

"So, are we ready to go? I'm getting cold feet… and not in that way," Alyssa crowed. Cindy and Yoko nodded, Jim tilting his head and the others silently agreeing.

They opened the lobby door, ready to face whatever came at them next.


	4. Kaboom

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 4

September 27th, 1998 3:45 AM

George's head was killing him. He tried to move his body, but it was sore all over. Something was keeping him on the ground, and he couldn't tell exactly what it was. His hand felt something warm and almost human, but he was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he would realize it was something very different.

"… Please… don't be…" He opened his eyes, blinking one second at a time. His hazel optics finally widely scanned the object in front of him, absurdly leaving him with a thought of hope. "…Huh?"

Cindy was strewn out on him like she had been trying to save him from something. He slowly regained the memory of the explosion and everyone scrambling to get away. He vaguely remembered flying out of the way of the blast then landing on something which had made him pass out. His head was bleeding, yet, he was already feeling a numb aftereffect.

His impulses wanted to touch her, to see if she was even alive. Her skin wasn't completely devoid of color and she was cut in many places. Her waitress uniform had now turned into rags and her hair that was once long and bountiful was now in harsh tangles.

George could only stare at her figure for a few moments. But it wasn't time for him to sit and play the dumb looker. He took some action and lifted her up.

Her back was covered in blood, the resource being a large thick gash.

George gasped and felt himself cough in anger that she had been put in such a poor condition. He knew that if she had been brought to the emergency room under normal conditions, she wouldn't have had a good chance anyways.

Still, she was warm.

And she had a pulse.

George kneeled next to her, debating the very thoughts that could either make him regret himself… or feel redemption.

He picked her up, his weak arms barely lifting her weight, and he carried her off to go find something that could perhaps help her.

----

"They just freakin' disappeared!" Jim was spastically yelling to himself about how he had left for one second, then come back to see the biggest damn fire of his life. "I'm I really that bad? I know I'm a jackass sometimes, but I don't mean nothin'…"

He sorrowfully lowered his head.

"I jus' get real scared, then I keep talking. Tha's all."

As Jim took off his cap and wiped his sweaty forehead, he desperately searched around some more, leading himself to the fire ridden debris of what had been Kevin's plan of a great escape. He kicked a shard of what used to be a can of soda pop and felt some of his old habits start to kick in. Shaking, feeling lost underneath surfaces…

"Man… and to think I used to be a'scared of the dark and bein' underground."

Jim had always been scared of going into places that were small and had little exits. They always frightened him, and his only way out was tackling the whole thing with one swipe. He was told he should work in the subway to build his courage and strength. It had worked to some degree and he had met Ricky Jackson, someone who had once had the same problems of young Jim.

Ricky wrote in this journal. He called it, the "Key to Surviving the Dark". Jim had scanned a few chapters of it. He was sure that Ricky had been rolling one or had been on some kind of drug, but it was helpful to read in a way.

"What I'd do to see those peeps again…" he sighed. The fire was licking his face. He decided he should start looking for them somewhere else… if they were still alive.

-----

Kevin had been the first one out of the building, feeling a big breath of relief cast out of him. The red and blue lights made him want to cry happy tears, but then he remembered he was a man and he wasn't supposed to cry. Least not in front of the ladies.

"And here we are!" he grinned with joy. But there was something wrong. There were police cars… but…

"Where are the cops?" Alyssa questioned with fear.

Yoko scanned her almond shaped eyes over the scene. Cars. No people. Just a vacant ghost street.

"Somethin' ain't right, and I sure as hell ain't gonna go flying in there. Nuh-uh," Jim squealed with trembling hands. Kevin gritted his teeth and walked up to the cars, slowly approaching them. He put a hand to the window to see inside the tinted glass. Empty.

"Anything?" George asked.

"Shit! Nothing! This is shaping up to be a real goddamn bad day!" he yelled. He added a kick to the trunk of the car, feeling some kind of release from his anger for a moment. "Now what the fuck do we do?"

"We could drive the cars…" Yoko commented.

"Uh-huh, and I have the keys. I was hiding them in my ass crack. Give me a break!"

"A-hem," Alyssa gave a mock cough, "I just so happen to know how to hotwire cars."

Kevin raised an eyebrow. First, the lock picks; now, the hotwiring cars?

"You a thief or somethin'?" Jim blurted out.

"She's a reporter. What's the difference?" David scathed.

"Har-har. Very funny. Now do you want me to get these babies started or what?"

Kevin bowed in a sarcastic way. "Be my guest." Alyssa sneered and she opened the door, which was surprisingly unlocked. She looked for the steering wheel, which was in the same place, and she shifted herself under it in a way that she could see the under-panel that covered the basic wires.

"I need something to open the panel… like something flat and stiff!"

Kevin looked around, suddenly seeing something that had not been visible before. A pair of legs, lying on the ground. The body they were attached to was still hidden behind the other side of the vehicle. Kevin ignored Alyssa's problem and moved around carefully to where the body would be. Soon the figure came into view.

"Ho-ly shit!" He yelled, flinging himself backwards to the ground. Before his eyes, a pile of the zombies were ripping into the body of a police officer who was now post mortem. The cannibals didn't take notice of Kevin until he had cried out in fear. Mark and David raced over, leaving George, Yoko, and Cindy to make sure Alyssa wouldn't get away in fear, and Jim frantically dashed around, looking for even a morsel to joust with against the killers.

"What the fuck…?! Hands up, shitheads!"

Kevin raised his seven bullet automatic to the first figure that stood up. His flesh was carefully peeled back from his cheek, revealing several of his teeth. Kevin would have vomited if not for the rush of authority that took a hold of him.

"I warned you!" He shot his gun, blasting a bullet from his metal chamber into the socket where the zombie's eye exploded. It stammered backwards, landing on two more of the foes, four in all. Kevin sprung up and ran backwards, giving himself distance between the enemy and his well being.

"Need help?" David joked, slamming a pipe into the fragile skull of one of the things. It shattered easily, sending a pile of gore and exposed gray matter to the street. The muscles spasmed for a few moments. Finally, the thing stopped moving, presumably dead for good.

Mark looked at the way the cars were positioned and suddenly concocted a plan.

"Hey, help me move this!" he shouted. David and Kevin turned around to notice that if they could move the cars, then they could perhaps create a barricade to save themselves a bit longer with.

"You heard the man! Get your asses to that car and start pushin'!" Kevin ordered while pointing his gun at the closest zombie near him. This one was slower, giving Kevin time to make sure the others were in safe distance.

"What the hell is going on out there!?" Alyssa demanded. "I still need something to open this panel!!!"

"No time for that!" Cindy warned as she pointed to the window behind Alyssa's crouched body. Alyssa lifted herself up and she saw the things going towards Kevin. In the distance, she could make out tons more. Her jaw dropped and she quickly flung herself out the opposite door, landing at Cindy's feet. The young waitress helped Alyssa to her feet, and they exchanged quick glances of thanks before running to the car people were moving.

"Hey!" George yelled. "Where's Jim?" He stopped moving the car and looked around, spotting a pair of legs crawling through a grating in the wall of a brick and wooden gate.

"Where's he going?!" Yoko cried. She wasn't sure to be angry at him or to feel concern for him. "I'm going to go with him! I can't let him wander off all alone!"

"Wait!" George called out with caution. But she had already made up her mind. He felt something in his forehead irritate him, but he decided she wasn't his first priority at the moment. "We'll follow you later! Now go!"

"Right," she smiled sincerely back as the doctor resumed his position pushing the car.

George was not fit for physical labor. He had never taken the time to work out at a gym or to even consider running or jogging like his wife said he should. He wasn't completely unfit. He did have a little bit of extra weight, but it wasn't anything that affected his looks. He did love doing one thing though, which was in his case, his daily exercise. He would go for long walks in the forest, feeling a sense of peace and prosperity in how plants lived together in a certain harmony.

His wife said he wasted his time in the outdoors doing noting when he could be out finding more "things" to do with his life. He was already a doctor, paid well too, though he was humble about it and never gave much thought to speaking of his wages. He had done some volunteer work, cleaning up trash in the forest and going a couple of events that had to do with organizing funds for diseases. He thought some of it was pretty interesting, but most of the times, he just wanted to be in the peace of nature once more.

Now, he felt like he was being tested by nature. Getting thrown into the worst of places with no resources familiar to him. He knew that he had to try though. He pushed until his arms were numb.

----

Yoko ran across the hard concrete and cobblestone ground. She felt her feet get sore as she slammed them and pushed off of the ground. She saw the small opening in the gate. She lowered herself to the ground and crawled, using what small shaking strength she had to get to the other side. Her palms hurt, small stones and the rough texture of the pavement jabbing into her soft skin. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then decided to ignore the pain.

At first, it was dark and she was thinking she was claustrophobic, fearing greatly that if something was blocking the other side, she wouldn't be able to get out. Her breathing grew deeper and she heard herself hyperventilating.

"Yoko," she said to herself calmly. "Don't be afraid." She felt her breathing slow down and a light got closer as she squeezed through the crawlspace. A few more moments and she would be out of this nightmare.

Then, she felt a spear of pain flash into her hand. She had forgotten all about the bite. She didn't have time to look at it, but she felt dizzy thinking about it.

"It's… not that bad… it's just a few marks. Nothing else."

But it wasn't just a few marks.

----

Cindy gulped, looking at Kevin and the others. They had finished moving the car, and now they were debating how the hell to get the door open since Yoko hadn't answered when they called.

"Please be alright…" she felt like crying. She hadn't wanted anyone to get separated and it was true that even though she wanted to be strong, she couldn't do anything. Her blue eyes drifted over the wreck of the street, watching as the once human figure tried to primordially get around the vehicle barriers.

But once she got to thinking, maybe this was what she deserved for her life. She wasn't always the pure happy waitress everyone knew. She had thought about committing suicide a couple times before.

There was that time when she was still in college. She didn't have enough money so she ended up having to drop out. This had angered her parents, who, against her wishes, didn't feel like taking her in again when she had no place to live. A few side jobs had brought her to her small three room apartment, but even then, she barely had enough to live off of. Finally, she had met this guy.

John Reed. He had been nice, so kind. He had bought her new outfits, taken her out to eat, and even got her a job at the clinic where he worked. She thought it was the "American dream" to her. That was, until she found out it was all a hoax.

He had just used it as a way to up his social status as a "good" citizen. He had gotten a few D.U.I.s and had cheated on her several times, as she naively sat around waiting for him to say he loved her again. She finally found out from an old classmate of hers she had caught up on the old times with. Will. He had seen this guy at the bar that he worked, hitting on girls left and right, getting drunk and thinking he was god.

Finally, he got in a car crash.

Cindy had been so depressed about being used that she had ended up trying to kill herself. Will had saved her again, rushing to her apartment when she didn't reply to his concerned phone call.

"And then he saved my life."

She looked at the ground, thinking of all the horrible things that had already happened. Yet, she felt like it had only been the beginning. She hadn't cried for Will. She didn't know why. She felt as if it had been her own funeral.

"No, these people are who I have reason to live for."

She focused back on to the reality she was forced in, realizing that the group had finally broken down the doors.

"Finally!!!" Kevin laughed. But his face suddenly grew stern and cold. Then frightened.

There was a gas truck, its tank spurting out tons of gas. And there was fire.

Screaming. Screaming and then she turned around and tried to get everyone out of the way. and then she felt something hit her in the back she heard the noise too late. Something almost like...

...an explosion.


	5. Icebreaker

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 5

September 27th, 1998 4:56AM

"So, what do you suppose we do now?!"

A pair of legs shifted around Kevin's sight. He blinked, realizing he was seeing things sideways. Something hard was against his left cheek. The pair of legs looked familiar.

"He's dead! We have to keep going! He'll just be empty weight!"

Kevin remembered that voice too. A woman's. It was hard to place exactly whose it was, for there was still a loud ringing in his ears. It was as if the voice was distant and floating away.

He tried to see if his fingers were still moveable. It worked. Struggling to move the rest of his mass, he started to see the legs turn around. His neck was aching like hell, and he was sure he had seen better days.

"Oh, for god's sakes!"

"I told you."

"Uh! Great, now we have ONE more person to worry about!"

Kevin sat up straight and rubbed his tired eyes. His gloved hands gave a massaging sensation to his skin until he finally brought them down from his face.

"If you're one of them, I'll fucking kill you." It was Alyssa. He figured that was the only person stupid enough to think he would die that easily.

Kevin looked up at her. He felt hungry. And thirsty.

"Braaaaaaains!" He mocked, sticking his arms out straight in front of him.

"Fuck you!" She yelled, turning her back on him.

Kevin laughed, looking the other way to see David standing quietly. He looked calm for such a situation. Kevin wondered why he was on the ground. Then, he remembered…

"Shit! The blast!" He frantically tried to stand, but he fell back down when a splitting pain shot through his leg. He lifted his pant leg to see that he had a huge gash in the lower area of his calf.

"Looks like you got nicked bad," David stated with concern. Kevin looked at his wound, then looked at Alyssa who wasn't the least bit worried.

"Well," she laughed with a frightened tone. "It's not my problem."

"Well, you're just a bitch. But then again, I'm not surprised."

With that, he stared at part of his shirt. One of the sleeves was starting to tear. He grinned and ripped it off, using it to tie around his injury. He gave a wince, but was more then pleased with his sloppy fix-up skills.

"Where's that doctor…?" He asked David.

"Can't find him. The girl, the waitress, the subway kid, the security guard; too." David looked at the ground. Maybe he was thinking hard. Kevin felt a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Hey! Don't worry, I'm sure they're all right. Maybe we just got separated, that's all. Hopefully, the worst of the blast was just my leg. And I need a few sexy scars for my escapades to come, so it's cool."

David groaned at the mention of the blast. Then he looked at Alyssa.

"Was it really that bad?" she gravely asked.

"Eh?"

She pointed over at something on the street. The fire and debris made it hard to see. Kevin squinted his eyes, but it didn't seem to help. It looked sort of like… a body.

"Oh god… please don't be..." He would have screamed right then and there, but Alyssa's words broke into his thoughts.

"Don't worry, I don't think it was any of those people from the bar, but we better find them."

"You sound pretty worried for a cold hearted bitch. How come you weren't like that when I was 'dead'?"

She didn't answer. She only put out a hand and make Kevin realize she was trying to help him up. He sighed, knowing that it was only the beginning of a long hard night. He reached for his cigarettes, but they were gone.

"Looking for these?" Alyssa grinned, holding up his box. "You shouldn't smoke. It can kill, you know."

"Hey, at least they don't want my brains," he laughed with a kind of relief.

The three of them looked at the fire for a long hard time and silently hoped that somewhere, the others were faring on a good queue.

----

Yoko looked around, digging her tired hands through the piles of metal. She finally landed her palms against some soft material. It was almost something like a coat. She was terrified to even see what it was. She lifted up more of the metal and found herself crying to a torn up seat from a car. She felt cool relief, but it was more then enough shock to make her breath heavily for a moment.

"I knew this wasn't a good idea…" she cried. She flung her head to the ground and sobbed, feeling her whole body shaking. She wasn't used to this kind of mental abuse. She was sure that she hadn't felt this hopeless before, regardless of whether or not she could remember anything.

"If maybe…. maybe I could find them. I'd be fine and everything would be alright!"

"Maybe, but then whaddya' do afta' that?"

Yoko heard the voice… recognized it, then spun around to see Jim standing there holding what looked like a broken pipe. She wanted to cry even more, but she kept the feelings in.

"Hey, babe, what were ya doin'? Miss me much?"

Yoko then remembered how she had ended up here in the first place.

"You! YOU!"

"Me, me?"

"You were the coward! You ran off! You son of a- " she lunged at him, trying to fiercely make him pay, but she was too weak. Too tired.

"Hey, girl, easy now… I was trying to unlock the gate form the other side! Don't go playa' hatin' me jus' cus' I was helping brothers out!" He lifted her off of him with a calm grip.

"Hmmph…"

"Anyway, you got the Jimster with you!"

"I guess it's not all that bad."

"What's that s'posed to mean!?"

Yoko looked at the ground. She was still sitting there trembling. Jim was almost a godly sight for sore eyes. She should be thankful, she thought to herself.

"Let me help you up, m'kay?"

"Yes, okay."

He grabbed her hand, but as he did, she screamed. It was the hand that had been bitten and it was getting worse. He let go of her hand and looked at her, freaked out he had done something wrong.

"No! You've been bitten!"

"No, please… don't leave me!" Yoko cried.

"S'okay, we all got our secrets."

He revealed his arm. There was a huge scratch, running down his skin. Yoko looked up at him.

"See? We're the same." Jim softly said.

Yoko smiled, even though they were both hurt, and she stood up. The two of them looked at the flames, and decided to go find the rest of their former teammates.


	6. Promises

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 6

September 27th, 1998 5:10 AM

"God-damn-it!" a voice shouted from the distance. Moans and gut wrenching inaudible noises were spinning around in her head. The veins in her head were starting to unwind, trying to escape, creating the sorest headache she had ever encountered. Her stomach was so weak that she wasn't even sure she could vomit. The arm wound was getting worse, and the more she thought about the problem at hand, the dizzier and more lost she felt.

There was a strange cold taste in her mouth and her skin felt like it was loosening. It was a very sickening feeling, but she somehow lost track of her thought when she saw a figure shooting people in the distance. The people looked like they were drunk, almost like the earlier people had been. The ones that had killed her neighbor. The ones who had taken a chunk out of her arm.

"Agh! These things keep comin'!"

Ginger Blaisedale's hair fell over her face and she felt a lump on the back of her neck. She went to touch it, but it wasn't there. She could have sworn she could feel something there. Rolling her eyes under her closed lids, she brushed over herself that she was just in a bad dream. She wasn't here. She couldn't possibly be there in the burning streets of Raccoon City.

One of the people the attacker was shooting fell over, making a terrible moaning noise. Ginger wondered if when she died, she would make a noise like that, a terrible cry of pain. She didn't want to know. She hoped that whatever that person was doing wouldn't find its way over to her.

"Damn…" From what she could tell, the figure was a man, about 6'2". He was wearing a heavy coat with the words "SECURITY" slapped on the back. He was robust and he was bald, giving him a tough look.

He was picking empty rounds from a gun, letting them fall to the ground near the head of the once living dead. Irene got closer, thinking maybe she was hoping to die. She landed her soft dirty shoe on a bottle, its structure completely imploding under her heel. It startled the security man and she gave a yelp and collapsed to the ground.

"Huh? You… aren't like them?"

Ginger gulped and used her weak hands to move herself backwards, giving a safe distance between her and the man.

"Don't come any closer! I'm human! I'm alive!"

The man looked at her and he looked like he was starting to smile and gain an expression of cool relief. He raised his hand to his head and rubbed the moist sweat off of his forehead. He checked the gun, making sure it still had ammo, and then he holstered it. It looked too big for the holster… almost as if it wasn't the right gun.

"You need help there, miss?" He walked over to her and held out his hand, giving her a free pass to being helped off the ground. She took the man's arm firmly and he lifted her off the dirty ground, her body feeling better when it wasn't rubbing against concrete. She brushed what she felt like "cleaning" and she sighed, her voice and breath sounding wavy and uneven.

"Do you have a name? My name's Mark. Mark Wilkins." He looked at the fire temporarily, Ginger feeling a little nervous about him with the gun. She was sure that he was alright though, seeing as he was probably good at his job. Maybe he could help her find a safe place.

"Ginger. I just kind of stumbled around here… I-I don't know what's going on."

"Hmmm, does any of us?"

"I guess not…" Ginger clutched her arm, the burning sensation bothering her again. She quickly lifted the makeshift bandage down and saw that the wound was crusted over with a black color. The skin and veins around the wound were turning deep purple and she could see it through the skin easily.

Almost loosing consciousness, she quickly tucked the tourniquet back into its normal position and looked back at Mark. Thankfully, he was still staring towards the fire, unaware of her impending doom. She started to think that if he saw the wound, she would surely be shot by him, no doubt. She couldn't take a chance. Even if he could help her. She felt a tear roll down her cheek and she turned away, starting to run as fast as she could.

Mark turned around, running after her for a short bit before he lost her. He looked around the empty streets, almost feeling his heart sink deeper into nothingness. She was gone. He took out his gun, cocked it, proceeding down the seemingly barren streets.

----

George stumbled through the floating gunk, looking for something to hold the door closed for a while. He succeeded in finding several metal bars which he could shove through the handles of the door for a while.

"But how long would that keep…?" he whispered aloud to himself. He sighed, grabbing the bars with anger and her waded through the water back to the small hallways connecting the infected world from the makeshift shelter of water and junk. He slid the bars through the double door handles and tried to bend them, his weakness suddenly running on adrenaline and actually starting to work. He only got them bent a little, but it was enough to stay sturdy on the doors. Just for good measure, he slid a wooden table in front of it and stacked some heavy metal debris on top of it.

After this was done, he looked at his dirty hands and noticed that he no longer cared. He laughed, rubbing the dirt off on his shirt. He hadn't felt this good for a while, knowing he had actually done something right.

He waded back into the clinic's care room and shut the door through the water. He looked over at the dry bed, its frame just tall enough to rise above the water.

Lying on the bed, Cindy Lennox was facing the fight for her life. She would once in a while budge, mumbling something, but she would fall back into a composed dream shortly after. George had administered some anesthetics and tried to clean up the wound earlier. He had done the best he could with what he had and now it was up to time to take care of the rest. He pulled up a muddy looking chair; the floral design looking like it was once bright and happy.

"We were all once happy…" George was sure that this wasn't what had made him unhappy in the first place. "Jessica, you seemed to enjoy the fact that it would all be over. You would say it like a bad thing, pitying me, wouldn't you?"

It was indeed true that his ex-wife had been the one to think about the divorce in the first place. The reasons were piled one on top of the other. "George, you never do this!" or "George, why don't we go here?" or "George, why don't you EVER have time?"

George was tired of it. He had told her when they had gotten married that he was a busy man and that no matter how short he wanted his work to be, it was stressful. He would come home after either saving someone or having failed, and it was a great weight to endure while sitting at the table eating dinner alone during late nights.

"And you wanted a child…" George looked down at the floor. She was always talking about how they would raise a family and his children would grow up to be just as smart as their father. When he was young and naïve, he has promised that someday that dream would come true. That was when he was still in medical school though. And since then, life was harder, and with that came the loss of promises. It wasn't that he didn't want a child, it was more of the fact that he wasn't made out to be a father; he didn't make up the "number one dad". And Jessica had broken up about it. Literally.

"And so I sit here, waiting for a complete stranger to rise from what could be her death."

He then remembered that he had seen Cindy working at the clinic a few times. She would be at the minor care unit, helping kids and delivering supplies. She was kind of like a nurse. He sometimes needed supplies for the hospital, so he would come down and get them, usually talking to her briefly, and then leaving to get back to his busy life.

He noticed that he was starting to get cold. He had put his dinner jacket over her, as the blankets had been tossed around, floating in the dank putrid water. He felt like a gentleman and quietly ignored his shivering. He rubbed his forehead, slicking his hair back out of his face with a slightly wet hand. He looked over at the window, peering down towards the street where in the parking lot, a few of the things were aimlessly moving about.

He had thought about turning off the light, but he didn't know if they were smart enough to notice. Anyway, the lights were on all over the place, flickering around and dimming sometimes and he felt that it didn't really matter if he turned them off or not.

His eyes moved down to his watch, looking at all the individual digits that the hand could land on. He followed the minute hand around as it moved in a circle, trying to see if it would ever freeze.

"As time goes on…" he mumbled. He looked at Cindy, his heart starting to grow weak with fear that she was dead. She hadn't moved for a while. He put a hand to her cheek. She was stone cold. He rubbed her cheek with his hand and tucked her hair behind her face.

"Please… if there is a god," he began, "… don't let her die. Please… I don't want to be alone again. I don't want to be alone…"

He moved back a bit, looking over her limp body. She was young, only about 25 or older. She had long platinum blond hair, held up in a ponytail. She had a kind of blissful look over her face, even while there was a pack of bandages around her torso with a red stain beneath.

"Please live. I ask you kindly. Please."

He lowered his head into his hands and stared at the cold water. His reflection was muddled and deformed, but he could see that he was not the man he once was. Something was changing. And he wasn't sure he was scared of it.

"I'll stay for a while longer..." he closed his eyes. "And I shall watch over her."

With that, a fatigue washed over him silently, and he drifted into a light sleep.

Cindy opened her eyes.


	7. Sans Sanctum

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 7

September 27th, 1998 6:16 AM

His blue eyes trailed over what he thought was a safe area for the time being. He limped over, his bad leg giving him a bit of a handicap, but it was nothing he couldn't make into a normal situation. He was bound to get injured on the force anyway. Well, if he could still call himself "on the force".

"What a shitty situation," he remarked, his eyes dilating as they stepped into the bright street center. He tightened his grip around his 45 automatic and grinned.

"Don't get cocky," Alyssa shouted. "We need to conserve what we got. So far, you pretty much suck at that."

"Hey, at least I'm alive!"

Alyssa sighed and mumbled while taking a few steps forward. She was brandishing her lucky cake knife still, realizing she could have used it to hot wire the cars. She felt so stupid, but she guessed that what happened would have happened and she wouldn't have made much of a difference in the end.

"Hey," David grunted. "You'd better watch out."

Alyssa turned around and rolled her eyes, then went back to quietly searching the area. She was sure that there was nothing around. It seemed that the noises of the screams and groans came from a large distance away. That didn't stop her from shaking like mad, but even brave people had the tendency to piss their pants at the last second.

"You find anything yet, Tinkerbell?" Kevin smiled. He was aching to get to a place where he could really patch up his wound, because he was starting to feel light headed. He certainly didn't want to seem too weak. He was afraid Alyssa and David might- if David didn't give a shit -abandon him.

He was the cop, the protector. He couldn't let these people down. Plus, they had already been though so much. There was no reason for him to give up. He remembered when he first joined the force as a young fool. Well, when he was young at least.

He thought all he had to do was wear a uniform and save people like in the comics. He'd always wanted to be a hero, even though most of the times he got way too ahead of himself or seemed to piss off everyone without really meaning it. He had even been on probation from the force for a few days due to him getting a DUI… in his uniform.

He had blacklist tabs, a smoking addiction, and he even gambled. Hell, some cop he was. But hey, as long as they didn't know, he was fine right? No, he was a jerk-off asshole. He had always been the one who even though he thought no one knew, it would end up coming back to haunt him in the end. Maybe this was the world's way of telling him he was a bad person. And that he deserved the worst possible ending to his screwed up story.

"Kevin!" Kevin snapped out of his silent thoughts and quickly stared at Alyssa. She was looking at the gates of the police station. He moved towards her, quickly smelling something worse then the already thick and putrid odor of death.

In front of the station's large gates, a mass of zombies and creatures, pounding to get inside.

"No," he thought, "…This can't be happening."

Alyssa took her shotgun and started to clench her teeth. She only had about two rounds left.

Kevin's eyes widened and he quickly turned around to relieve himself from the screwed up sight. His stomach was already weak from the smell, but he decided that he couldn't take the picture in.

"What the hell happened here?" David questioned upon the event. He pushed Alyssa away and looked at the sight, watching the many zombies crowded around the station. He seemed to be looking for something; skillfully too.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Alyssa rudely blurted. "Are you checking for a way in, because we're fucked, if so."

"No. We aren't."

"… Say what?!" Alyssa raised an eyebrow. "Okay… this cannot be fucking happening."

"We need a distraction."

"Oh for fuck's sake, let's just get out of here."

"Hey, there are some good men in there," Kevin stepped in. "I'm not leaving them behind. Plus, we could use a shelter."

"Oh, real good idea, Kevin. Let's waste our time getting inside. Then, maybe if they're all zombies, they can happily point us to the nearest exit. Are you stupid or something?! They're probably all DEAD. It's useless."

"Your attitude is getting worse then I thought it could."

"God, please tell me, why am I stuck with this fucking dumb ass!?"

"Hey, at least I'm good looking," he scowled raising his eyebrow. Alyssa stuck her tongue out in rejection. Kevin sighed.

"Hey, David, you're not gonna object, right?"

David stood thinking quietly. He then grunted, pulling his gloves up more to prepare for something.

"We're going in."

"Uh, then what the hell are we using for a distraction?" Alyssa looked at the two men in curiosity and horror at the same time.

"The hell to do I know. I wasn't a strategist."

"Well, neither was I, so I guess we have to turn back. Either that or I leave you shit-heads to deal with it on your own, because I don't wanna be zombie chow."

"Fine. See ya' later, little red riding suit," Kevin scowled. He was hoping she wasn't actually going to leave. She couldn't possibly be that brave. Hell, he remembered the elevator incident a while back. She would shit her pants before going solo in the dead parade.

Alyssa felt something empty in her stomach, but she knew they weren't in any situation. They knew she was a coward. She sensed it from their unconcerned reactions.

"I'm really going! Don't come after me!"

No reply.

Alyssa, angry and heart broken decided she could show them. She turned around, lifting her gun to a comforting position and stepped slowly into a branching alleyway. She didn't turn around. She had no reason to.

Kevin turned to David.

"She'll be back, right?" he asked, a bit of pity in his voice.

"Whatever."

"Thanks for the thesis, pal. I'll be sure to come to you when I need a long impressive speech."

-----

"Hyaaah!" The metal cracked down like a silver wave of glimmering light. It imploded the thing's stomach, leaving a pile of shaking spasms and one non-beating heart.

"You alright?" Jim asked, taking his hat off, rubbing the sweat and putting it back to keep his head covered.

"Yeah, I'm still in one piece," Yoko managed to say just above a whisper. She examined her small frame, checking for any imminent wounds that may affect her later.

She found nothing, successfully, and resumed her slow stroll behind the safety of Jim.

"Hey, you eva' wonder how this all started?" Jim was finally getting to the philosophical stuff. Yoko had been listening to him babble for about two hours and she was sure that it was just about the most comforting yet annoying thing ever. She was starting to respect the fact that he could keep cool in such a terrifying situation like the one they were facing.

"I don't know. I haven't thought of it much."

"Well, for instance, ya' know what the government's doin'?"

"No… I don't. In fact, I wonder why they haven't shown up."

"Hmm, maybe that's 'cus this is all over the place. S'pose the whole world's like this. 'Pocalypse or somethin'."

Yoko thought about it and shuddered. She still didn't have many memories about what her former life had been like. She could only remember bits and pieces, but something told her impulses that she was not going to let this be her future. Or her end.

"I don't want to think that yet…" Yoko looked at her tired worn feet. They were silhouetted by the street light's dim glow. Raising her head to peer up at the sky, she thought she saw a glimpse of hope.

A black shape in the air, two lights on it blinking. Her eyes grew wide and birthed new wishes and devotions. It wasn't a bird, she couldn't place what exactly it was, but she knew that it was there to help. A helicopter. It was good enough in her mind.

"Jim! Look!" she pointed at her object of delight and Jim took his cap off in awe. He waved it in the air and started screaming for joy.

"I knew it wasn't so bad! We're gonna' live!"

Yoko was filled with joy, she couldn't have asked for anything else in this situation. Except for maybe a nice refreshing meal and a hot shower.

Soaked in her euphoric thoughts, she didn't notice that the copter was coming towards them. It started slowly, and then it was soon above them, closer then ever. Until something hanging off the back of it dropped.

A larger then man-sized capsule built of strong titanium steel. Labels sprayed in grungy white spray paint-stenciled letters. T-004. Caution

Yoko's smile faded. Her face grew pale. Something wrong was going on. She recognized that code. T-004. T-004. Her mouth opened to say something, but no sound came out. She flung herself at Jim, knocking him to the ground.

Just in time too, for the thing burst open, metal parts exploding in a fury of strength. Almost like it was spring-loaded. And then the grunt of something big… loud unbearable stomping noises. Jim didn't say anything; only staring at the twisted nightmare that was heading towards him and Yoko.

Bald white skin. Patches of thick veins and splotches of burnt skin. A long black glossy trench coat, buckled around the thick as an elephant's leg waist. Was it muscle?

No, it was pure bio-weaponry. The expressionless face gazed with its pupil less eyes at Yoko. She knew it was looking at her.

"The tyrant…" she managed to squeal under her fear-filled breath. Everything was suddenly cold and she couldn't move her body. "THE TYRANT!!!"

Jim rolled off the ground and threw his pole at the thing. Even with the speed and strength of the throw, the foiled metal crumpled at first contact with the thing's massive hand. Jim gave a yelp and flew back over to Yoko, rushing to yank her off the ground. Yoko didn't care that he was dragging her and hurting her wrist. She was damn glad in fact that he had gotten her off the ground.

The thing removed its fist from the spot Yoko had been sitting on, now a crater. Yoko couldn't breath, her heart was beating too fast. She felt something in her head growing weak, slow.

"Don't get sleepy on me now, girl! Wake UP!"

She couldn't hear him. She only saw the ghosting trails of what objects flew by her. A slow motion of the events that happened next. Passing by the unkind street lights, barely unscathed by the close shards of metal. And then the door. Apple Inn.

"I can… sleep there…" she closed her eyes, hoping Jim wasn't too angry with her.


	8. Let's Get Physical

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 8

September 27th, 1998 7:00 AM

It didn't matter which way he turned. He would always feel that burning sensation all over his face. He could feel each individual sweat droplet tumble down his face and he could have sworn some tears were mixed in. Even through all this, he there was certain dryness to his senses. His nostrils flared, and his hands clenched with no real grip.

In front of his eyes, there was a huge fire. And no matter what he did, he couldn't get away from it. He had trapped himself in a corner and he was going to die. No matter what he did; swatting at it, kicking away the red hot debris, yelling in agony; none of it worked.

All he had been doing was following that girl, and now he had to get stuck because he had tried to be a good humanitarian. He should have known that with good deeds came all of the consequences. No retribution for him.

"Damn, and to think 'Nam was easier then this shit. I'm tired and old and I just 'wanna go home."

Mark sighed. His lungs were filling with more smoke. He wouldn't have much time left, the way things were going. That girl he had been trying to find, she had ended up turning the opposite direction as him after all. He had gone into what looked like the back of an inn. Too bad something had exploded.

He saw it happen before his own eyes. The firefighters spotting him, telling him they were going to help him, then seeing the meters and thermometers go up… the warning from one of the firemen and then…

Mark opened his eyes to find himself trapped in a burning inferno. He had made it "safely" to the second floor via a braking ladder, which collapsed not too long after he ascended up it. He spotted a door into the main building, so he took it.

And now he was in the ghost of a place, finding fire blocking his every path that could perhaps be his escape. He was not having a good day, and incidentally, he felt that no matter how hard he tried to stay alive, something wanted him dead.

"Well, I guess I shouldn't have gone out to eat…" he felt some kind of fear and cowardice start to soak into him, his throat getting dry and sore. He thought of his son, his fifteen-year-old beautiful baby boy. He would never get to see him again. He would never get to see him grow or go to college, or even see him get married.

"And Rynne. I won't get to see Rynne either. No more holding my wife and knowing that everything is okay."

He looked down at his hands in the glowing firelight. They were covered in creases and scars, but that was nothing to him now. He was ignoring his past pains and realizing that his present ones were the ones to worry about.

Darting his teary eyes about, he spotted a door, not billowing or shooting smoke up from behind it, but almost telling him, yelling for him to go through it. He raised a shaking hand towards the handle, testing it to see if it was hot, and then turned it when the test proved negative.

On the other side of the door, there was a small room that had a pile of crates in one corner and a large bookcase in the other. He spotted a few of the classics, one being Alice in Wonderland. He figured this was all some sort of dream and he'd wake up from it just like Alice. But he knew, deep down in his mind that it wasn't a figment of his imagination and that this was cold harsh reality.

Focusing on what he had to work with in this room, he noticed upon further view that a corner of the room was starting to burn. Before long, he stomped on the fire to try and put it out, but the source was underneath the current floor he was on. The crates, he thought, as he positioned himself behind one of them and blindly hoped that he knew what he was doing. This would hold off the fire for a little while, he figured.

After moving the crate, his body felt exhausted. He had moved cars, held doors, crated barriers, tried to help Bob… he had been through quite a lot, and now he was tired after moving a crate.

"The fire can't get me now… this crate will hold."

He was wrong, but it had a greater effect then he had assumed. The crate had imploded the ceiling onto the room beneath it and had created a sort of step for him to use to get down. The room was cleared in one corner and he could just make out a door that seemed safe enough. He wasn't worried at this point about the fire. He was just hoping he wouldn't run into any of those things again.

Before he went through the door, he dove into a cabinet's drawers, looking and searching frantically for something that could even be of a little use. He found a paper that had some room numbers on it and the codes for locks inside them. Maybe it could help. He found a little pack of matches. Kind of ironic for his current situation, yet he kept them. A small pack of aspirin, also helpful; some lost jewelry, not useful; and a can opener. God knows who had placed that there. He thought about leaving it, but he might need it. There was always that very awkward phase in a crisis where the most unpredictable device was chucked at the beginning and then needed at the end. And then the heroes beat themselves up because they didn't keep it.

"Hmmm, mind as well take it," he whispered, peacefully and calmingly to himself. His own voice was alien to him now and he was surprised to know he could even speak. He was probably going crazy.

"I wonda' if those people are still out there somewhere…" he lowered his head to watch his old tired hand pocket the can opener into his large jacket. He felt the other objects scrape against his shaking fingers, almost trying to grasp on to him for help. He shook off the feeling and looked at the door.

Fire on both sides, no hope in this room. Only going forwards.

"Move out, soldier," he said, commanding himself with a certain coolness.

------

One, two, one, two. The feet pattered loudly against the linoleum as muscles in her legs burned. Cindy's feet were aching. High heels were not the best choice for athletic purposes. She wanted to go home, to take a nice hot shower, and to go to sleep. The large wound on her back had crusted over with dry blood, but the running made the cracked portions slide against each other making a very painful sensation.

The end of the hallway was ahead. Her heart was pounding. Every beat felt like it was amplified, just to make her even more terrified. Of course, she was so scared, she normally would have screamed, but something deeper, something told her that she had to keep cool.

She couldn't keep going without turning around to see if it was still following her. God knows where it was now, the hissing and heavy breathing now silent. She could have sworn she heard a tapping in the distance. With one shaking hand, she raised the broken broom and quickly surveyed her exit options. Left hall; quiet, trashed, dark. Right hall; light, almost clean, yet, not right.

"What was it they say," her voice almost unrecognizable to herself, "choose the same direction as your dominant hand…" She looked at one of the curled hands around the broom and noticed some splinters sticking out, as if little details were now easy to see.

"Right hand…" she looked at the right hall, swallowing bile and mucus her throat had coughed up a while back. She wondered if that thing was watching her, waiting for her to go into the dark hall so that it could sweep her up unnoticed. "Maybe the left hall…"

She ignored her dominant hand's choice and took a few raced steps into the left hall. She spotted a vending machine ahead. Looking at the situation, it wouldn't have hurt to have something to eat. She hadn't thought this would have happened at all, so she had only planned her culinary schedule to have dinner as her main meal for the day. She had eaten an apple, but then again, she was on a diet and she was always hungry.

"Oh, I wish I had some money…" she then stared at the broomstick for a moment and could have laughed. She was so frenzied she'd forgotten that there was no such thing as civility in disasters. At least when you needed it to your advantage.

She swung the thin wood at the glass, her first hit bouncing off.

"Well, I guess I'm not as strong as I thought…" she didn't give up hope. She wildly bashed the large mechanical box until the glass imploded and rained down to the ground by her feet. She looked at the choices she had for food. A bag would have been nice.

"Hmmm," she took off her waitress vest and folded it into a sack-like shape. She scooped up a bunch of snacks and candy and piled it into her new makeshift bag. Next, she wondered how she would get drinks out of the soft-drink vending machine. There was a small view window, but she couldn't tell if the drinks in there were for display or for drinking. As she didn't really give a shit at that point, she swung her broom at it and opened it up, finding, luckily, that the drinks were the real deal. She put four waters into the bag and sighed.

She proceeded down the hallway keeping her eyes on the many shaken objects spread out among the scenery. Books, chairs, vases, computers, bulletin boards, anything that'd you find in a clinic was pretty much lying around left and right. She even spotted an overturned box of dirty syringes and avoided it without another thought.

Hopefully, she could find the elevator again. It had been a stupid idea in the first place to leave without saying anything to George, who had apparently saved her. She felt bad. She just wanted to go back and apologize, then eat some of her treasures she had picked up.

She noticed that without her vest, she was colder then she had been. But then again, that was the little details sticking out in a fortified view. She shrugged it off and moved her platinum-blond loose strands of hair back into place by sliding a tired hand across the surface. She found that the way she had gone eventually looped back to the original fork in the road she had come to.

"Hmmm, I guess I got the shorter version," she tried to smile. She turned around only to find herself screaming madly.

"Calm down! Calm down!"

"Get off! Get away!" Cindy slammed the broom at the person or monster and felt it hit the soft surface.

"OUCH!"

Cindy opened her sweat covered eyes to see that it was a man in a doctor's coat. He worked at the hospital according to his identification card on the coat. In fact, she knew who he was too. She sighed and then felt a great deal of apology when she eyed the breaking broom in her hand.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't know it was you, Doctor Crey!"

"No worries… oh god, I'm just glad I found you. I stopped here to get some medical supplies. I didn't expect to find any survivors. Are you hurt, is there anyone else?"

Cindy looked at the man's worried features. He was about 40 to 42 years old, judging from the creases in his face and forehead. He had short brown hair, slicked back and sweat glistened. He had a scruffy face that seemed to almost be haphazardly crooked, along with the rest of his confused attire.

"Yes, there's another person here. He's on the first floor."

"Hmmm, good. We need all the help we can get. Wait here, my dear, I just need to get something from a room over here real quick. I suppose you know this place just as well."

Cindy was still confused, yet, she waited. One of the heels on her shoes was coming loose. Her nails were dirty. Her arm was covered in some kind of gunk from when she had climbed through the ventilation shaft from the room George was sleeping in.

She had woken up and found that he was fast asleep in a chair next to her. She had been embarrassed and at the same time thankful. She'd given him the pillow from the bed then silently promised that he had done enough and that she would find a way out for them and come back for him. That was before she ran into that crawling thing.

It had been glazed over and it was almost like someone had been turned inside out. Massive claws and no eyes. Grey matter showed almost as a fancy toupee on the beast's head.

"Oh god, I hope no one gets hurt…"

"I can't assure you that we will escape unscathed, but we will escape."

Cindy realized, that wasn't Cray's voice. She turned around. George stood there, very exhausted looking, as if he had just woke up from a coma or from being in a car crash. A few strands of his black hair fell down over the left side of his face. Cindy was relieved to see he was alright. There was some dry blood and a scrape on his forehead, but that was nothing.

"George!"

"Glad that I could find you. I had to navigate through those treacherous ventilation shafts. It was a nightmare," he stared off into the distance behind her. Almost like he was recalling the story.

"This is insane," he began. "We need to escape as soon as we can. I don't think we'll find much else here."

"Wait," Cindy replied, "There's another person here. A friend. He's from the hospital. His name is Dr. Cray. He went to go find something and he told me to wait."

"Then we should go search for him. Time is of the essence and we've not much of that left in these derelict halls."

He took a few steps past Cindy, turning to her and making sure she was alright.

"You know, your eyes stand out with that dirt on your face. My ex-wife has the same kind of blue eyes."

Cindy wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not. Instead of answering, she kind of walked past George. George felt stupid and felt like something inside him was desperately trying to make contact and a certain friendship with Cindy. He decided to let himself be quiet and make his only worry getting Cindy and this Dr. Cray out alive.


	9. Good Guys Die First

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 9

September 27th, 1998 8:12 AM

She blinked for there wasn't much else she could do. Splitting up with them had been the stupidest mistake she had ever made. She wasn't getting anywhere and to make things worse, her shotgun was out of ammo, and she was still being pursued by whatever was out there. She flattened her tired body as much as she could against the brick wall, hoping desperately they wouldn't spot her. She closed her eyes, stopping them from furiously blinking and felt her eyes start to water.

She wasn't supposed to feel this weak. This was all wrong. She was the strong one, the one that always got things done. But never, in her entire career, had she encountered shit like this before. Her hands were tightened against the cold metal of the shotgun, the heavy instrument supported by the ground and her palms. She hadn't fired a gun like this before, well, since back when she had gone hunting with her father.

"He'd know what to do," she whispered to herself, trying not to whimper. Her father, a manly man of sorts, had been a key figure in her life. She had always been the tomboy, getting teased by the girls and never quite fitting in with the boys. She never wore skirts as a kid and she had always liked to keep her hair short. One of her favorite things was when she went on hunting trips with her dear old dad. She would try to imitate his moves, trying to cock the gun with her scrawny child arms, throwing a tantrum when she couldn't get it. Her dad would do it for her, making it look so damn easy that Alyssa never understood how she couldn't do it.

She had gotten her first gun at the age of 11, making a big deal out of it and bragging to every kid she was acquainted with at her school. She even wanted to bring it in for a report she was doing, but she was thoroughly denied. She had been known at school for starting fights and being vicious and mean to anyone who opposed her. She was a loner, an outsider, and this made the teacher's frightened when she mentioned the word gun to them.

When she finally got to high school, she started to develop and learn what it was to be a woman. This made her aggravated, but she didn't want to be a man, knowing how brain dead and stupid they were at their current stage in life. She found that her passion was writing and she would often read her poems and stories to her dad. She longed to go to places and to write about her travels, but as her sights got more realistic, she saw that she wanted to be a reporter.

Now, she was alone, a cold hearted bitch of a woman, but it got her places most of the time. Even if she wasn't sucking up to her male superiors most of the time like the other bimbos did. Her dad would have been proud of her, she guessed, if he was still around. But Alyssa wasn't even sure he'd know what the hell to do in a situation such as this.

"God dammit, why'd I have to be so stupid!"

She quickly covered her mouth, realizing what a big mistake she had just made. She had really done it now and the moment she heard the noises get louder, she knew that she'd fucked up big time.

She frantically stirred and ran farther into the alleyway. Sure, it was a completely unknown and dangerous area, but at least she knew there were zombies coming from the side she wasn't running into.

She spotted a dumpster, thinking of random thoughts. She wondered why she was thinking of simple division problems in a time like this. Gliding through the scatted shit people had left seeping out of trashcans and sometimes thinking that she might slip on a banana peel, she found the grips to the trashcan and swung the lid to it pen as fast as she could.

Now was her chance. She could hide in there until they went away! But what if they didn't go away and what if she was stuck there, suffocating in a pile of garbage until maybe Kevin the Cowboy or Plumber Man found her dead body and made a stupid one-liner.

"Screw it!" She flipped the lid down, jumping up and letting her arms push down the lid as she fell and she raised a leg to lift her herself on to the dumpster. When she was safely up the metallic box, she could spot the group of flesh eaters descending towards her, almost through fog and mist that the sewers left above their grates, swirling mysteriously. She was fucked.

"Shit! Get the HELL away from me! Go eat a rat!" She wasn't sure how the hell she was staying so calm. She had just been freaking out a few seconds before, and now she was provoking the damn things to grab her ankles and dab her in BBQ sauce.

"The things I do for love!" A familiar voice. No, Alyssa's last second thoughts making her paranoid.

BANG!

One of the things wobbled in front of her and then slowly fell to the ground. She did a double take, and then realized it had been shot in the back of the head. The other zombies gave moans of confusion as they were suddenly given a taste of the treatment the first of them had received. It was only until they were all lying on the ground when Alyssa made out a figure in the distance.

"Hah, you thought I'd just let you run off, hmm?" That brown hair. That stupid smile. That disgusting triumphant pose.

"Kevin. You asshole. What are you doing here?"

"Well, you see, after you left, I felt bad. David, on the other hand, well, he was just happy to see that it was finally quiet. We decided you were kind of right about storming the RPD. We'd be fat idiots if we did. Especially in this condition."

"Hmmph. Finally end up agreeing with me… Well, whatever."

"Yeah, we ended up deciding that we should find more survivors first, and then get a better plan."

"Oh FOR FUCK'S SAKE."

Alyssa jumped down off the dumpster and landed on one of the corpses, accidentally propelling forwards at a slant. She almost landed on the ground when she was pulled up by the arm.

"You should be more careful. We don't need anyone else to get injured. Plus, you're our best shot at the moment, seeing as I can't use an ammo-less gun," he held up his .45, "… and I suck at using a shotgun."

"Well, sucks to be you. I just happened to run out of bullets," she said blushing, trying to hide the fact that she was flattered at his comment. Without a further second wasted, she recomposed herself and sighed. They were completely screwed.

"So, where is that plumber asshole, anyway?"

"Well, I thought you'd never ask."

Kevin jerked his head to the side, signaling her to follow him. He walked at a limp and Alyssa started to realize how much pain he must be in. He risked his health to save her selfish ass.

She had to repay him somehow.

"No!" she thought. "You're just letting your emotions get in the way. Survival is all that matters. It's every person for themselves. This was just one more stepping stone on the way to getting out of here."

She grinned and quickly caught up with Kevin, knowing that sooner or later, she'd be the only person getting out of Raccoon City.

-----

Jim grabbed the pole and swung it, smashing the creature back another few inches. If he could just get it to fall over, he could get past and safely get himself into the next room.

"Damn piece o' shit! Stay dead!"

It wasn't working very well. In fact, the pipe was starting to bend. And Jim was starting to lose his courage faster then he thought he ever could.

The dead being raised its head, trying to get an idea of where it would attack him. Jim wasn't sure if it even had thoughts. He wasn't even sure if it was trying to kill him or not. But he wasn't going to take a chance.

"God! My life is shit!" He chucked the bent pipe at it, watching as it finally decided to give and bend almost like rubber backwards. Jim stood dumbfounded for a few moments, then realized he wasn't going to stand there and wait for it to get up and kill him.

"Hah, motha'fucka!" He kicked it as he went by, almost doing a victory dance. After he was a good distance away from it, he searched the halls. Most of the rooms had smoke coming from the cracks in the doors. Jim was intelligent enough to figure that if he opened those doors, he'd be crispy fried chicken.

Moving on, he noticed he was back to where he'd started. It seemed that it was just a big square.

"I should'a looked at that map… man, why do I always gotta' be a dumbass?!"

Things were already looking grim. Yoko had originally been looking with him for a safer way back outside, but it hadn't gone as expected. Sadly, a piece of flaming debris had separated the two. They made the best of it and decided they would try to find each other.

"Hah! And I thought since this place was all burnin' and shit, there wouldn't be any zombies! All I want is some eats and a bed. I'm done with this b-movie crap."

He looked down at his shoes. They were once clean and white. Now they were only but a shadow of their former condition, covered in dirt and unknown substances he didn't want to take a chance getting off his shoe.

"Dammit, I liked these Reeboks too."

That was when he heard something start to crack above him. He glanced upwards to see sparks jetting out of what looked like a smoldering ceiling of flames. He didn't take another second to watch as he flung himself away.

It barely grazed his leg as he shot to the ground, hugging himself until he was sure he hadn't been caught under the towering fires. A quick observation showed him that he was pretty much gridlocked into the tiny orange-lit hallway. And he was getting pretty sweaty.

"Fuck, I need a shower, yo. That an' a nice lay."

----

Yoko kept rubbing her eyes because they felt so heavy and dry. She wanted to cry. This wasn't at all what she was trained for. She hadn't a clue why the hell she thought she could survive anyhow. She was just a nobody, a sad little lost girl. No memories. Only vague ones from the past.

"I… just want everything to be happy again…"

The door nearest to her position wasn't safe. Smoke billowed out of it from all directions, and the door handle seemed to be slightly steaming. She has enough common sense not to even go within a few feet of the door.

A window nearby let her know that she was on what looked like the second floor. A small courtyard rested in the center of the square shaped plot. If she could somehow get down there, maybe she could find Jim and they could finally get back to escaping from the main city.

"Jim, I'd do anything to hear your voice again."

She hadn't realized how much help he'd been until he was finally away from her. All she could do was hope he was alright and that she hadn't been a complete asshole to him.

Just then, she heard footsteps coming from a few feet away. She looked up from her hands and saw that there was a figure in the distance.

"A zombie!" she assumed and readied herself. But she had nowhere to run. The way she had come was a dead end… and that door wasn't going to keep her safe either. She had to face the thing.

"… No… No!" She waited, bracing herself, her legs and knees trembling. She could barely keep herself standing. The figure almost looked familiar. She was starting to fear that it may be someone she knew…

"Hello?"

Yoko blinked. That voice… it was…

"Mark? Mark?! Is that you?"

"Yoko, right? Wow, never expected to see you here."

She let go of her breath and lowered her tightened, sweaty palms. She let herself move towards Mark and she gave him a hug.

"Uh, I'm sorry," she managed to say on release of a breath. "I'm just so relieved to see another human… alive."

"I know the feeling."

"So… what happened?"

Mark rubbed his head and then lowered his eyes to the ground. "I ain't so sure of that myself."

"Jim… have you seen Jim?"

"Oh…hm? That skinny subway kid?"

"Yes, that's the one. Me and him… we got here and then we were separated."

"Seems that's always the case."

Yoko almost wanted to smile, but it wasn't as funny as it seemed after she realized that the others could be wounded… or dead.

"I saw a girl earlier… she was about that waitress' age… but she got too far ahead and I ended up in this damn inferno."

"A hellfire."

"Sure is," Mark agreed.

"We should stick together, alright?"

"No problems here, missy. We'll find Jim and then we'll get the hell out of here."

"Yeah."


	10. Crey Matter

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 10

September 27th, 1998 10:00 AM

He started to pace furiously. It wasn't something that George expected a man in danger to do, but that's what Dr. Crey continued to do. He was lost in thought.

"If I may ask, what wing were you a doctor in?" George looked at Crey curiously. His eyebrows slanted in a disposition when Crey didn't respond off hand. After a few moments, the man looked up and looked apologetic.

"Oh, why, I was stationed on the third floor. I've heard of you, Dr. Hamilton. You're one of the best surgeons, according to what I've gathered."

George's eyes widened. Now was hardly the time to be praised, yet, he felt some kind of dignity in what he formerly did.

"Erm, I'm not as good as I could be," George sighed. He still remembered the few lives that had to be let go. There wasn't much he could have done to help them anyway. "But I'm very grateful for your applause."

"Don't be so modest, good man. We all have special traits. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to finding that… oh yes! Now I remember."

"What is it?" Cindy suddenly asked. She had come out of a deep thought, silently standing next to George previously.

"Blood packs."

"Blood packs?" Cindy and George looked at each other with a very clueless scowl.

"Come now, don't give me that face. There's too much chaos to act like you don't know why I need them."

"What could it be, Doctor?" George stepped forwards, examining the man's scouting for the blood packs through a cooler. "Is someone injured?"

"Oh, by god, I wish that were the case… It's much worse."

"How much worse?"

"Well, a few weeks ago, one of the tenders of the property, a custodian, if I may, found a leech wandering about the sewer tunnel. Of course, this wasn't as strange as we had thought, but they kept appearing, so we kept them in the hospital as a sort of side study. Until recently, they had kept showing odd signs of behavior and well, they've seemed to have turned into something much more… terrifying."

"Leeches… ugh…" Cindy shivered. The rusty scab on her back started to scare her… the thought of leeches wasn't one she had wanted in her mind at the moment.

"I can't quite describe it, but I think if we use these, we might be able to get it out so we can rescue whoever's trapped inside. But I must be quick about it."

Without another second's thought, George raised his head and stepped forwards. He picked up one side of the cooler and nodded to Crey.

"We'll help you. Besides, the hospital was my second family. I must help or at least try. It is my job as a savior."

"Ah, thank you, good man. I'm pleased I finally got to meet you, Dr. Hamilton."

As the two men lifted the cooler, Cindy turned around to open the door. But that wasn't what ended up happening. Piled there right in front of her, a mass of exposed tissue. Those claws. The brain on the outside of the head. No eyes.

"No… No! It followed us!" While she shrieked, the breathing and clicking of its claws grew louder, and finally it lunged, grazing Cindy's cheek. She cried out in pain and threw herself backwards to the ground, scampering away from its massive brutal body.

George and Crey dropped the case, George struggling through the random scattered furnishings to grab Cindy and pull her away from the thing.

"What… is it?" Crey managed to say, just above a whisper. He didn't get a chance to hear the reply. Before a second could pass, the thing shot a long spearlike shape out and pierced through something soft.

Cindy raised an eye to see what the shape had hit. George quickly covered her eyes and rushed her out of the room.

"What about Crey?!!" she screamed. George didn't answer. He shoved her out of the room, ran back in and grabbed a few blood packs, and ran out. "Where's Crey!?"

"He..."

George's answer was cut off as the thing leapt out of the doorway, blood seeping from its sharp, almost human, jaw. Cindy screamed and ran, her shoes pounding and stabbing a squeezing pain into her toes and heels, but she didn't care. She felt George's hand wrapped around hers as he bravely pulled her forwards.

His hands, so soft yet, they were cold. She wanted to stop running, to stop and sit and cry. She wanted to break down, to let all her problems and past escape her and finally let her be free. She wanted to tell George all about herself and to know who he was, beyond his voice and face.

But reality always kicked in.

A slam of a door and George said something to her. She couldn't think straight and she didn't know what he had said. She shook her head and whimpered. He lifted her up from the ground and finally, he stood there, looking at her shut face.

He then hugged her, realizing how scared she must be. She wasn't used to this. She didn't want to see this kind of fear approach her.

They stood there for what seemed like hours… days. Cindy grabbed his coat and squeezed it. She grasped it as hard as she could to know that he was there and that she wasn't alone.

"I'm… sorry," she muttered. Her voice was hoarse and her throat was caught. She didn't say anything more.

George patted the back of her head, almost forgetting that she wasn't Jessica. She was Cindy Lennox. She wasn't his wife. He grew lost in thought also.

The door was barricaded. The room was safe. There was a way out. The window. It was only a few minutes until they finally left embrace and made their way towards the hospital, one step at a time.

George looked back, trying to forget Crey's face; the tongue of that creature impaled through his left eye.


	11. Chicks and Their PMS

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 11

September 27th, 1998 11:05 AM

The sky was still dark, although it was light out. David rubbed his head, trying to get a good grip on his thoughts. Not only was Alyssa back with them but she had spent all of her shotgun ammo, leaving them with a bunch of useless weapons.

David had regret letting Kevin go off to play hero and use the rest of his .45 clip up. If they had left the bitch in the red suit to die, then they probably would have been a lot farther along then they currently were.

"So, now what do we do? You guys have anymore brilliant plans?" Alyssa mumbled. She sounded disappointed and angry.

"Chicks and their PMS," David thought.

Kevin stopped moving for a second and thought. He looked as if he was concocting a great plan. David was getting worried and prepared for the idiocy of it. He'd end up agreeing with Kevin though. He was, after all, the cop with the combat training.

David knew his way with a knife. And that was only because he needed some protection around the places he had to work in.

He never knew when something might finally be down in one of those sewers or when someone might try to start shit with him. He just felt better carrying it. It was a hand-down from his father's side of the family.

"La Pequeña Mariposa", the swiftest of all folding knives. It was an antique. He kept it clean, just like the other weapons he collected.

He was real interested in swords and warrior code. It had always sparked an interest in him ever since his early days of high school.

"Hey," David snapped out of his remembrance and stared at Kevin, "… are you done?"

"You know, there's always the subway. I wonder if any of the trains down there are still operational. It wasn't used that much anyways, so I doubt it will be crowded. Plus, if worse comes to worse, we can always take a hike through the track to find some help."

"The subway? You've got to be joking." Alyssa sighed. "There's bound to be a shit-load of those things in there. What if a bunch of people like us had the same idea and died down there? Besides, the track is too dangerous. Especially with the electric wires and such."

"That's the smartest thing you've said all night," Kevin muttered.

"Morning."

"Morning?"

"Yes," she snorted at Kevin, "Don't you have a watch?"

"Who needs a watch anyways?"

David took their bickering time to go scout out the area for any sight of something that could perhaps be useful. Nothing but debris and dead bodies. Something had been here them, and it was evidenced by the bullet holes.

David could spot a car and a gas truck burning, the two shapes right next to each other. They had crashed and exploded upon impact. And judging by the way the smoke was still burning fuel, it hadn't been too long ago.

"That's no help. No ammo in a pile of burning shit."

"Huh," Kevin turned to David, "Did you say something?"

"No."

"Hmm, alright then."

David walked onwards, still minding the "dead" zombies and finally found himself near a familiar place in town. "The hidden alleyway," as some had marketed it. And right there, a neon sign.

Kendo Gun Shop. Open 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Hah." David snickered.

"What are you so happy about?" Kevin asked. He joined David's side and looked to the big red neon sign. "Well… I'll be…"

"What?" Alyssa joined in the chorus and started to gain hope. "Yes! YES!"

The three of them raced out from the alleyway and started to carefully climb their way around the obstacles in their way to get to the plot of street in front of the gun shop. That didn't last long though.

Alyssa stopped moving and cried out. Something was grabbing her leg, She looked down and saw that one of the bodies was latching on to her, trying to bite her lower calf.

"No-no-no!" She tried to kick it with her other foot to get it off, but that failed when she lost her balance and fell backwards. It started to yank her leg harder and harder to make it stay still. She struggled as much as she could.

David, realizing she had stopped following them, turned around and saw what was happening. He gasped and jumped back over the debris without saying anything. Kevin stopped and watched, deciding that having two people go over was overkill. Especially when he was wounded.

David took out his trusty pocket knife and jumped down on the zombie's back, feeling a strange sensation under his feet of objects being pushed aside to make room for the shape of his feet. It made him sick to his stomach, but he quickly lost thought and stabbed the thing in the head, countless times before watching it drop its pitiful form once more. It's hand was still clamped around Alyssa, stuck because of rigor mortus.

"Get this thing off of me! Help!" David sighed and hacked the hand off her leg. He then extended a hand to help her off the ground. She looked at it and sighed, standing up on her own accord and then making a huffing noise and walking away.

"…" David felt stupid and decided she was a bitch. He didn't need her thanks anyways. He didn't really care, he was just trying to be helpful.

"Hey, good to see you're still alive. This way I can still ask you out when we get out of this," Kevin blabbed to Alyssa.

"Shut up." She walked past him and slowly over to the front of the gunshop.

"Ladies first," Kevin mocked. Alyssa looked over to David and sighed.

"Fine, but if anything, and I mean anything is in there, I swear to god, I will not be going in to say 'hi'."

"You won't be coming out to say 'bye'," David snorted. Alyssa looked angry and shocked but she growled and made her way to the door. David looked down at his knife. It was dirty. He wiped it off on the thigh of his pants and then put it back in his utility pack, next to his wrenches.

"You know what?" Kevin asked David.

"…"

"I can't feel my leg anymore."

"…"

"I was just saying."

"Do I look like I care?"

"... Alyssa, wait, I'll come too."

David sighed and made his way to the door, following the bored Kevin.


	12. Crossroads

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 12

September 27th, 1998 11:30 AM

The floor smelled like cleaning products. That was all he could focus on while he slowly waited for the thing to pass by. He could imagine someone coming in with pine-scented spray, making everything smell just like everything else that was clean.

Jim knew that if he tried to think of something else, it would just worry him. His cheek was pressed against the cool wooden planks as he quietly raised his eyelids to check if the zombie was gone.

It stood there, drunkenly hanging over, looking as if it were trying to touch its toes. It was covered in blood and a terrible stench of rotting food and feces came off of it. This was probably why Jim was thinking of the subtle scent of the cleaning products.

He was playing dead. He had heard on many wildlife shows that if you play dead, certain animals will go right by you without acknowledging your presence. Jim didn't count on it for one second that it would work, but he pretty much had no choice when he hit a dead end.

So far, it was pretty easy. He was exhausted anyways and had to temptation to move at all. In fact, he was sure he would fall asleep if he didn't keep focused on the floor.

"Come'on!" He thought. "I need ya' to git outta' here!"

The zombie swayed its rubber-like arms back and forth. Almost like it heard Jim's thoughts.

Any second now, Yoko would find him, he hoped, and she could distract it while he got up and somehow get past it.

"Maybe," he sighed in his head.

"Ughhhhh…." The zombie groaned.

"Shut up, mothafucker," Jim felt like yelling. "I've got bigga' problems then your lazy ass does right now."

The zombie turned around, seeing something out with a raised body. It drifted past Jim once more and started to pound on a door. Jim held his breath and finally, without further ado, the zombie left the hall, the door still wide open.

Jim let himself lay for a few grace seconds, and then he sat up, sighing heavily, as if it were nothing for him. He checked that the door was idle, and quickly peeked into the room. He didn't see anything, so he shut the door, quietly.

He decided to check the last door, tapping his left hand against his thigh with such vigorous nervousness. He decided one lucky coin flip wouldn't hurt.

Taking out his coin, he closed his palm tight and mumbled under his breath. After, he flipped the small silver into the air and caught it, slamming it on his left hand.

Heads.

"Da-yam. I knew that I would git good luck."

He shoved the nickel back in his pocket and moved his warm sweaty hands to the doorknob. It was fairly warm itself, but not enough to burn him. He turned it and found himself staring at a room that looked as if nothing were wrong with it.

"Hmm," he wondered. "I'd sleep here if it wasn't on fire."

He looked around, observing anything and everything just in case.

He spotted a painting on the wall, a large European castle, and the supposed title underneath it: ITALY. There was also a switch.

"… the fuck?" he whispered.

-----

The streets were no place to be, especially in such chaos. There were bodies laying left and right, ghost stores, vacant vehicles, burn marks; pure discord.

No matter how hard George tried to displace the sights from his mind, they ended up appearing as soon as he noticed how wrong everything had gone.

"So much for a small drink and a meal," he sighed. Now he was lost, tired, and had to keep someone else safe. He was usually the kind of person who could get through things like this with a cool mind, and people looked up to him for that, but at the moment, he had been suffering with so much that he just couldn't take his responsibilities with any real direction.

On his left, Cindy stayed close next to him, his broad-shouldered coat around her vest-less and cold body. It was big on her, but she seemed satisfied enough. He didn't care about his body temperature. He just wanted to get out of the necropolis that had become of Raccoon.

Cindy looked up at him, her hand holding his as moral support. She had been so frightened that George couldn't quite imagine what such an experience had been like for someone as innocent and gentle as her. He felt that he had to keep her safe and that he was supposed to shield her and keep her pure.

She blinked and tried to smile at him, giving the hint that she was alright for the time being. He nodded and continued to look forwards once more; taking note of the fact that he should watch where he was stepping.

"Do you think… we'll make it?"

George stopped his thoughts for a moment and turned to Cindy.

"…"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"No, it's fine."

George bit his lower lip, trying to find a way to soothe her thoughts without telling too much of a white lie.

"It won't be easy, but I'm sure we'll find some kind of way out of this sufferable city."

Good enough, he thought.

"But, what if we don't?"

She was really starting to feel hopeless. And now he felt bad. It was always in a person's mind that there was a chance they wouldn't make it through complete danger.

"We just have to keep faith and push onwards. Bravery is what we need most."

"Of course. I pray that God is watching over us."

George wasn't very religious, but he could agree that he hoped something or someone would keep them safe and protect them from what was to come. Even he knew that he wasn't as strong as he wanted to be.

"How long to the hospital?" Cindy asked. She coughed, a sign she was developing a slight cold.

"Are you alright?" George asked, seeming concerned.

"Yeah, just a cold… I'm fine."

She walked past George, not letting him ask anything more and he soon joined her again, wondering why she was being so dodgy.

"Well, to get to the hospital, we'll have to take Romero Street and turn at Rayson Street. After that, it's just following it until we hit the more rural Raccoon City and the hospital shall be right there."

"Why are we going there?"

George thought again. His associates. Gray had said there were people there, trapped because of that… Leech thing he had been talking about. George felt cold, thinking even twice about abandoning them there, leaving them to die. But how much of a chance did they have finding the survivors alive?

He decided it was pretty slim.

"Where would we go if we didn't go there?" Cindy asked.

"I'm not sure."

"What about the police station?"

George dwelled on that suggestion, thinking of all the possibilities of there being some sort of shelter there or even a protection unit. They were after all, Raccoon's finest.

"Alright, we'll head to the police station instead. We'll be a lot safer there."

Cindy agreed and they turned off onto another street, holding their breath and crossing their fingers for luck.


	13. Playball

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 13

September 28th, 1998 12:36 AM

"Any luck yet?" Yoko wiped the sweat from her face. She squinted her eyes through the smoke, trying to search for any signs of Jim. Mark joined up with her from behind, shaking his head and sighing.

"Nothing yet."

Yoko took a few cautious movements forward, taking note of the fact that a lot of the architecture probably wasn't built with a raging 24/7 fire in mind. She was sure one of her steps might make the whole building collapse. Then they'd really be done for.

"You should really stop pushing yourself," Mark coughed, some of the smoke rising into his already burning nostrils. "We can't risk getting knocked out in this smog."

Yoko gazed away and suddenly realized Jim was probably dead. This whole building was a death trap.

"You're…" she stopped and started to say something else, but she was cut off when she started to hear a tapping noise.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered, trying to lower herself closer to the ground. Mark stared at her with a concerned face and started to crouch down too.

"What?" he whispered roughly back. She raised a finger to her mouth to signal quiet and then she concentrated on the sound around her again.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

Mark raised an eyebrow and started to look around. Yoko assumed he had heard the noise now. She got up and took his arm, leading him back to the door they came from.

He unholstered his gun and as Yoko shut the door, he started to reload. Yoko looked for a lock or anything around that could keep the door shut.

"We need something to hold it!"

"No time for that, kiddo."

"But what if that—"

"Let's get a move on. We gotta' get out of here fast."

At that moment Yoko started to turn around and run, but she smacked into something. She fell down, gripping the throbbing source of pain in her forehead. She was too stunned to open her eyes and see what exactly she had bumped into.

When she didn't hear gunshots, she was afraid Mark had gotten hurt or had run away, so she finally looked up, eyes wide open.

"Hey, my beautiful sunshine girl."

Yoko grinned wide and bright.

"Jim!" Jim lowered a hand to help her off the ground and then he nodded to Mark. Mark looked relieved and he put his gun back in the holster at his side.

"I was afraid you had been hurt or killed…" Yoko almost cried.

Jim then hugged her and patted her on the back. "There-there, girl, everythin's gonna' be alright now that I'm here. You ain't gotta worry for me no more."

Yoko then started to panic. She remembered her hand wound. She let go of Jim and quickly stared at her hand, checking it for further signs of infection.

The scab had now started to glaze over with a black sort of crust and yellow was visible near the veins close to the area. She couldn't bare to look at it and her stomach grew weak. She turned away and gripped her tummy, trying to stop that nauseous feeling.

It was too late though. She vomited on the floor, crying and crying about how pathetic she was. She was going to die, and Jim was also going to die. That was, if they never found a cure in time.

"Yoko!" Jim took her by the shoulders and looked at her. "Hey, you don't look too good at all."

He picked her up, piggyback, and started to carry her, Mark following close behind. He was sure that they would find something to help them.

But deep down inside, he was filled with doubt.

The Raccoon Police department was still in its former state. Covered; swarming with the undead. The thick green doors were safe and spotless from behind a barred gate. The gate, however, was the real red zone.

George gulped. This was not the sanctuary he had been holding so dearly in his head. In fact, he was ashamed that he had not gone with the idea of going to the hospital. Now what would he say to Cindy?

She was fast asleep on his back, probably exhausted from the long walk. He feared that if they tried to find a way around, they would be cornered, and that in her state, fighting would be one bad move too many.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I was foolish. I should have figured that we would end up being shut out."

Quietly, he turned around, trying to stay low and out of sight of the zombies. He heard several moans and felt his heart stop for moments. He squeezed his eyes shut quickly hoping desperately that the moans weren't alerts from the sight of him.

"Stop worrying," he thought to himself. "You're the one who stays cool headed. Focus. Focus."

He looked at the ground and spotted some blood drops. They seemed to be coming from something near him.

"The three C's— cool, calm, collected. Remember that, alright?"

He picked up the pace and started walking faster. In fact, he walked so fast, he started to lose grip of Cindy. He struggled to somehow shift her back on to his body, but he was losing strength.

Once again, he saw blood fall from a source nearby. It was very near. It almost seemed like the blood was coming from him…

He ignored it, laughed unwillingly to himself and scanned the area. There was an alleyway. And a basketball court.

He looked for any signs of being followed but nothing was there, so he turned into the alleyway, almost tripping on empty abused soda cans, scraps of rotten food, and long crumpled bags of chips and other assorted sweets.

The basketball court was in better view and he now saw that there was one figure standing in the middle of it.

George cursed, feeling so unlike himself that he cursed again, gritting his teeth to bide his anger for just a few more moments. If he could get past this basketball court, he would be near the back of the police station and closer to getting Cindy and himself to a safer place.

"Now what?" he questioned. He couldn't go rushing through the court. He was most likely be attacked by the creature or even danger Cindy further then she already was. A basketball was standing directly in his view.

He set down Cindy very quietly, kissing her forehead in a kind of daze. He then stealthily sneaked over to the basketball and positioned his fingers around it, lifting it quietly off the ground.

The figure stayed hung over its body, limply and loosely like a rag doll without any clue as to how it was supposed to function.

George raised the ball and whistled. The zombie lifted its upper half and turned slowly to face the trembling Doctor Hamilton.

"Burn in hell!" George chucked the ball, lodging it right into the gut and solar plexus of the zombie and it fell over spasming. It must have been an older one as its flesh seemed to break easier then the ones George had encountered before.

It seemed that they still decomposed, even though they were living. Or as close to living as a corpse could be.

George walked over and kicked the zombie, making sure it wouldn't get up for a while. Stunned, it tried to move its jaw, but George lifted his foot and crushed the zombie's face underneath his once clean shoes.

"Sorry," he smirked, "…doctor's order."

He went and fetched Cindy, feeling a rush of relief, yet feeling unsanitary. He rushed past the body, even in its totally mutilated state and made it to the alley that was connected to the basketball court.

He looked at his hope and realized that there was a massive van blocking the way. There was no way he could lift Cindy up there and plus, he was looking for a place to rest.

A door was on the other end of the alleyway, and George knew that even if there was something on the other side, that he could always turn around.

As he made his way to the door, it opened.

He started to back away and just when he started to run, he realized something strange.

"Hey, what do you know, it's the doctor!"

George stared, his face pale white. It was Kevin. And behind him, David and Alyssa were staring back at him.

"… Hello." That was all George could say before he exhaled.


	14. Going for a Ride

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 14

September 28th, 1998 12:59 AM

Alyssa peeked from behind Kevin to see George, the doctor from the bar, carrying what looked like a child on his back. As George started to come near, she realized it was the waitress, Cindy. Alyssa gasped and saw Cindy was bleeding. Not a good sign.

"Doc, it's been a while. It's damn good to see you," Kevin cooed, as he lifted a hand to George to shake.

"Well, it certainly hasn't been easy, traveling this weary path." The middle-aged man coughed out of tiredness and sighed. "It seems my age is catching up to me…"

"Nonsense! You're only …"

"Thirty-nine."

"Oh."

Alyssa tried to get a better look at the bleeding Cindy and saw that her face was completely devoid of color. Not waiting for a break in the conversation, she decided to blurt it out.

"Cindy's bleeding."

George turned his head as far as it could go to see Cindy's pale face resting on his shoulder. She looked very sickly.

"Dammit! Quick, someone help me get her to a place to lay."

David looked around and silently spotted the van on the other side of the alleyway. He pushed Kevin aside and made his way to the back of the vehicle, grabbing a huge box of ammo, putting it on the ground and then clearing out just enough space while the others did a double take on the box of ammo.

"Ammo!" Alyssa cried.

"Shut up, bitch." David muttered as he gently pulled the Doctor away from the laying Cindy and picked her up softly. He carried her to the back of the van and set her down.

Taking George's coat from around her body, he put it over her form and looked back to the others.

"It's… all my fault…" George dug his head into his hands.

"Doc, she needs you most right now. Don't give up hope now!" Kevin was trying to rally as much enthusiasm as he could. George didn't seem to be listening. He was lost in thought.

"Alyssa, come on, help me out here!" Alyssa didn't turn to look at Kevin. She was biting her lip and trying to remember something that could help them.

"George, please! There's not much time left!"

David looked down at Cindy and sighed. If the doctor wasn't going to do something about it, then he would. He climbed past Cindy's fragile form and shifted himself into the front seat of the van. Little to his beliefs, a key was jammed right in the ignition, waiting for him to twist.

He grinned, almost definite that they were going to make it through this night somehow.

"Everyone. It's time to take a ride." He revved up the engine and stared as the rest of the crew turned their attention to him. Kevin grabbed the doctor by the vest and got him in the truck by dragging him. Alyssa hopped in and shut the doors behind them.

"Hmmmph, we all here?" David didn't wait for an answer from the depressed gang as he started to put the thing in reverse to clear a little more room. He then shot forwards, slamming into a fence and finally making it to the main road. Everyone in the back held themselves steady as the car made some awkward turns, most likely from the random debris and garbage laying strewn throughout the city.

George looked up from his woe and glimpsed at Cindy's hand, shifting ever so softly left and right with the movements of the car. He crawled over in the chaos and took her hand, putting it to his cheek.

Cold.

Alyssa finally got herself into the passenger side and Kevin joined by leaning into the middle as there wasn't a third seat.

"Where are we going?!" Alyssa yelled. The van swerved and cut her next sentence off when it crashed into some zombies. That didn't stop the moving van.

"The hospital."

George perked up when he heard David speak. "The hospital…" he whispered. He realized the warnings Crey had given them. That leech monster…

"Wait—" but they couldn't hear him. He sighed. It was useless. But then again, if they got past it, Cindy would be safe. At least, he hoped desperately so.

"Cindy, hold on." He rubbed his cheek to her hand once more and closed his eyes, almost feeling lulled to a sweet sleep by the rapid rocking of the van.

-----

"And that seems to be the power room," Yoko pointed out. Jim stared and tried the handle one more time.

"It's locked!" he cried, hopelessly. Yoko sighed and pulled out a key. It was silver. "Is this the right one?"

She put it in the lock, but nothing happened. She grit her teeth and returned the small shape to her coat pocket. Jim seemed to be having an idea. He then shoved his hand into his coat and pulled out a golden key.

"No, that might not be it, but 'dis sure is!"

Plugging it into the keyhole, he gave it a slight twist of his wrist and the three of them heard a click. Yoko rejoiced and hugged Jim, resulting in Jim gaining a surprised look.

Mark stood up, his former position being rested with his back against the wall. He raised a handgun and opened the door, quickly scouting it before waving the other two in. He was trying to protect the two kids.

Mark was a Vietnam veteran. He knew that life was short if you didn't make the most of it. He had learned that the hard way through seeing so many of his friend lose their lives. People always trusted others too easily and they ended up feeling broken in the end when that trust was lost. His philosophies had pretty much run the rest of his life from then on.

His son, who was only fourteen, was his hopes and dreams. He wanted his son to grow up to become a great scientist, or a lawyer, or something worth aspiring to be. He also wanted his son to be happy, which was hard for him to get used to, for he had never had that luxury growing up.

He had to put a lot into parenting the right way. Even if sometimes, his son fought back or made him feel like the bad guy in the situation.

His wife, Lynne, who his missed so dearly. He could see her standing in front of her garden that she put so much time into. He could cry thinking of that garden being gone, now that this whole outbreak had started.

As he was lost in his thoughts, he slowly shifted back into the present where the two kids were, trying to turn the power back on so they could just make it out of this hellish hotel.

They had so much to live for. Both bright, intelligent, young human beings. They had come to be like his children in the few hours he'd known them. He wasn't about to let anything happen to them. And they would find the others. Somehow.

Jim stared at the switchboard, trying to figure out how the switches worked. He seemed to recognize the type of switchboard from one of the rooms in the staff area in the subway, but it was a bit different.

"Hmmm, 'dis one seems ta' be supplyin' power to lights. And 'dis one is bringing power to da' outside…"

Yoko chewed her lower lip in thought. He was certainly good at figuring this out so fast. She could hardly see any difference between the switches and the odd codes underneath.

"Ah-ha! I think I got it!" Jim switched on flipper and they heard a beep from somewhere. That had to be the emergency ladder. If it wasn't there wasn't really any other options.

"Props to Jim," Jim seemed to feel more heroic. Yoko smiled and Mark nodded as they were ready to leave the room. As he put his hand to the handle, he twisted it and slipped outside. Nothing.

"Alright, let's go," he marshaled. As he started down the hall, he heard a heavy breathing. And something tapping…

"Yoko…" he whispered, "Isn't… that the noise we heard before?"

Yoko stopped moving and listened closely, huddling in near Mark. The breathing got louder with every tap. Then, they saw something fall from the ceiling.

"What--?!" Jim muttered. And then something sticky fell on to Yoko's shoulder. Almost like…

"Saliva?" she gasped.

And then they looked up.

There, crouching on the ceiling was the most terrifying thing they had seen all night. Pink matter splayed over bones, the brain on the outside, razorblade-sharp shoulders, and huge massive claws where hands would be. To finish it off, a long tongue, unfurling and reaching towards them.

Saliva dripped off again.


	15. Betrayal

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 15

September 28th, 1998 1:20AM

The entrance to the hospital was dark and ominous. The only light was coming from inside the glass paneled doors. Little to their belief, the hospital grounds were barely speckled by the undead, with the occasion figure maybe standing and droning on with their low-pitched moaning. Aside from that, it could have been a completely normal morning at the Raccoon General Hospital, but George knew otherwise.

The van pulled up to the front, the passengers all filled with a distained relief. Alyssa looked carsick, even though she had been sitting in the front, and Kevin was in a state of weariness.

Cindy would finally be safe, George tried to tell himself. He couldn't let grief overcome him in this kind of situation. He was acting so foolish over the life of a woman he'd just barely met hours ago, yet there was something that kept his heart heavy.

"George," he thought, finally acting his age, "this is no time to be thinking with your romantic desires." Finally coming to senses, he exhaled and looked to the others who were unsure whether to disband the van or try to hide it for further use.

"I have an idea," Alyssa stirred up in the silence. "I say that two of us and the Doc stay here and grab some medicine for goldilocks and anything else that might be useful while another of us goes back in town and tries to find some help."

"Uh, why one of us? It's bad enough that three of us are missing. Splitting up isn't exactly a bravado choice there, blondie," Kevin mocked. "Beside, I saw that scratch on your leg. You were itching it while we stopped at the gun shop."

Alyssa looked shocked and turned away from Kevin. He shook his head in a disappointment and sighed.

"You're not telling me she's infected…" George suddenly spoke. "I mean, logically, whatever this outbreak is, there's got to be some sort of virus doing this. I mean, it all makes sense. This is the sort of mutation that occurs biologically."

Everyone stared at George. It seemed like he had been doing some hard thinking over the van ride. Kevin was particularly amused at the fact that he was talking about this virus with so much detail. Perhaps he was right. Now that Kevin thought about it, it made sense. Will had been attacked and even killed by those things; yet, he had come back and even tried to kill them. Infection was a nice way to put it.

"You're not going to take this news well, Alyssa. I'm afraid that even scratches can contract infection. If not by means of spreading DNA, then means of other bacteria getting into the wound. In a matter of time, you will start to show signs of the disease."

"Disease?!" she screamed. She was frightened, far beyond any fear she had even experienced in her life. She was going to die. She was going to die because of a stupid little scratch. "You're wrong! It's just a little scratch! Not even from those things! I… probably just got it when I tripped on the metal shit…"

George decided that he had been too harsh. But they had to know the truth. Alyssa needed to detoxify herself or she would kill them. As of yet, they had no clue what kind of invader was doing this. It was nothing like the kinds of conditions he had witnessed before.

"Well, scratch or not, what the hell is the plan?" Alyssa cried. It looked like this one was against her. "Please, I'm fine. Just trust me!"

"Trust?" David growled. "Look lady, all I've seen from you is cowardice and bitch antics. Now if that's not very assuring, I don't know what else I can say about your 'trust'."

Alyssa looked hurt, almost like an abused child. She was alone. George tried to open his mouth to say something, but Kevin stopped him.

"Doc, you're only going to make this worse. You gotta help Cindy."

George wasn't about to abandon another person. He knew Cindy needed help, but through the eyes of a doctor and a lifesaver, he couldn't let Alyssa just be left to die.

"I'm helping Alyssa too. I may not be a savior, but it's my duty to at least try."

Alyssa looked up from her tears and stared, wide-eyed at George. She wasn't used to people actually trying to do something for her unless it was absolutely worthwhile.

"Fine, look, I'm sorry," Kevin gritted his teeth, "I'm an asshole. We all are sometimes."

Alyssa ignored him.

"Whatever, look, me and David will go look for out next destination. You all stay here and do what you need to do. Hopefully there are some survivors in here."

George remembered the leech creature. No, it had to be gone by now. It was too late now. If there was anything here, it wouldn't be too bad, judging by the outside of the building.

Not letting it bother him anymore, he remembered the blood pack still in his coat pocket. That would come in handy if anything were to happen.

"Let's get you cleaned up," George tried to say, without fear, to Cindy. He picked her up and Alyssa stepped out of the vehicle. The other two got themselves ready for a trip, but not before Kevin tossed a handgun to George.

"Here," he laughed. "Christmas came early this year."

George caught it, even with Cindy on his back again. He then nodded to Kevin and David.

"Oh, and one more thing," Kevin said. "If you by chance come across any radios, try to contact the RPD for me. The frequency is '460.175'. Try to remember that, okay?"

George tried to put that in his mental notepad and then waved good-bye and good luck to Kevin and David as they finally drove away. Alyssa still looked freaked out, but she stood next to George as they waited in front of the giant building that stood before them.

"Let's proceed," George spoke as he and Alyssa journeyed to the front doors and inside.


	16. Back From the Dead

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 16

_**September 28th, 1998 1:26AM**_

Jim grabbed Yoko's arm, feeling the fabric of her worn jacket rub against his clammy palms. He tried to get her to move backward with him, as he didn't want the two of them standing any closer to the door.

Smoke, thick billows of it, puffed out of the top and bottom of the entrance, making it evident that this too was a danger and a false array of hope. Jim felt beads of sweat move down the sides of his face as he tried to slowly pull Yoko back again.

She wasn't moving. He kept whispering her name, but she wouldn't stop staring at the corpse. It wasn't like they could do anything now…

"Yoko… baby…. Hon, we gotta go--" he tried to say under his breath. She finally started to comply and back up, moving her hand to Jim's own and burying herself in his arms.

It hadn't been their fault.

Jim kept trying to think of how it could have ended differently. The monster, having come from above had been out of Yoko and his' reach. It wasn't like they had a gun.

But that's where Mark came in. He vividly pictured the robust war veteran yelling, telling him to go as the inside-out thing lunged out and knocked Mark on to the ground. Mark, fighting, struggling under it's open jaws, his hands clasped on his gun so tightly. He had such an expression of bravery on his face, is that why he told them to leave? Is that why had he told them to go?

Jim even puzzled why he and Yoko had listened. Had they thought he could handle it? Or were they just too scared to realize that leaving him behind was a terrible thing? Jim couldn't stop thinking. The door was closed off now, an explosion of fire and debris had fallen, blocking off the path.

It had jammed the door and caught the area around it on fire. And that was how they ended up in this hall with the corpse of a dead child.

Yoko wasn't taking it very easy. First, Mark had to go and now she had to see the maimed body of an innocent little girl.

As Yoko started to cry, Jim put his other hand on her head and gently rubbed it through her hair, trying to confort her. She was looking up to him now, and it was his duty to get them through this.

He then closed his eyes and rested his head on top of hers, feeling so done and tired with this whole thing.

But it wasn't over and they needed to get out. Jim knew this, and even has he held the girl who moments before had questioned how man enough he was, he felt that if he got through this, they might actually get a chance to know each other.

That was Jim's reason to live. And he knew that Yoko needed him the most now.

"Come on," he said, softly. "We gotta keep movin'. Ain't time to start gettin' all weepy on me now."

Yoko made a few sniffling noises and then looked up, her eyes red with sorrow and she wiped her face with her arm. Jim looked down at her and tried a smile, hoping maybe she might feel better. She looked back, trying to search for the right reply.

"Yeah…" was all she managed to say.

As she released herself from his arms, she clasped his hand, squeezing it once more for a bit more insurance that things wouldn't be so bad. Just to hide her fear. The fear that had been in her since she had woken up in that hotel room so long ago…

"Hey, do you remember that ladder?" Yoko looked at Jim, puzzled about his question. Sure, they had found a room with a ladder but it had been stuck. And the button hadn't worked…

"The power!" Yoko suddenly struck up. They had turned the power on minutes ago. If they just found their way back to the ladder, they could be down in what looked like the exit of the building. And they would be home free…

Jim ruffled Yoko's hair with his hand as he started to walk a bit faster, some hope in his stride.

Bad idea, for as soon as they hit the corner, they stopped in their tracks. One of the figures was a man with his eye dangling down his clipped cheek, blood speckled across his shirt and lower body. His arm was crooked, and he raised it up to try and grasp at he two survivors.

Behind that zombie, a woman, her clothing on fire was tilted and roaming towards them. Her left foot was bent as far to the side as it could go, crippling her walk as she dragged the useless limb along. Her face was completely singed, the only recognizable features being her teeth and part of what looked like her nose cartilidge.

Jim pushed Yoko back and they turned in the opposite direction, trying to head back to the place they had started, having frenzied thoughts of how they could get past the two corpses. But that plan was ruined.

There, on the wall across from them, the inside out creature, it's long tongue wavering back and forth, brandished as if it was about to strike any second. Yoko screamed and Jim held her tight as he tried to decide what to do.

They could try and run past the two zombies, but they could very well end up hitting another pack of more of them and be totally doomed. But then again… that… creature could come after them also. No matter what, there was always a counter action.

"Fuck 'dis shit!" Jim cried out as he ran for the zombies, jumping in between them. Yoko gasped and cried out, watching as the two undead figures started to turn around and try to grab at Jim.

As he lay on the ground, recovering from the shock of the fall, he could hear the zombies approaching, and fast. He rolled on to his stomach and then somehow pushed himself so he somersaulted backwards and on to his stomach facing the other way.

He pushed off the ground, flinging himself back on to his feet, and he held out his hand, bekoning the decaying bodies to focus on him.

"You like dark meat?! Come n' git it!" He looked around for something to throw at them; anything at this point. He saw a piece of concrete sticking out from some fallen out wall and he grabbed it with a burst of strength, thanks to his adrenaline.

"Yoko! Stand back!" He yelled, in somewhat of a heroic tone. He chucked the manmade rock as hard as he could; its weight being released from his hand shortly after and the concrete smashed into the face of the burning zombie woman.

She fell backwards, moaning with what vocal cords she could still use. Jim sneered at the fallen foe and turned his attention to the one that was still standing. With another quick action, he tackled into it, knocking it down.

All the while, Yoko stood by, horrified that Jim was going to get hurt. But she was at the same time amazed at his courage he had just gained out of nobility. Jim removed himself from the stunned zombie as fast as he could, almost tripping and falling forwards again. He looked at Yoko and winked, reaching out for her hand so he could help her across the laying bodies.

"Let's go! Now!" Yoko snapped out of her amazement and ran forwards at a light jog. It seemed that the thing on the wall hadn't spotted them quite yet, a great advantage as they weren't at all ready to fight something like that.

It was just luck that those bodies had been weak enough to beat up with a few handy tricks, but anything stronger and they might have been dead.

Jim grabbed her hand as she leapt over the bodies and the two of them quickly made their way over to what looked like another corner. This hallway looked too familiar…

"Have we been here before?" Yoko asked, a bit of nervousness in her voice. Jim looked into her brown eyes for a moment and then shrugged.

"I dunno… maybe?" Jim looked at the only option of an entry they had. A door.

"Well, might as well try it," Yoko replied.

"Anything you want, girl."

Yoko blushed, a bit shaken by his admiring choice of words and she walked forwards and slipped her small hand on to the doorknob. With a slight turn of her arm, the door started to release and they opened it.

"What took you so long?"

There, standing, looking like complete hell, and probably feeling like it too, was Mark.

"Mark!" Yoko raced forwards and practically leapt on to the older man, his tired and bruised body almost giving away at her weight. "Mark! You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive! What, you think a badass monster like that would'a killed me?" He chuckled, Yoko now noticing his face was covered in scratches. "Hah, I've seen worse in 'Nam."

Yoko smiled, feeling like there was more luck in the world then ever. And maybe, just maybe, they'd all look back on this and laugh.

Jim scratched his head and laughed, holding out his hand for Mark to slap.

"Man, you pulled some Superman shit back there…" Jim raised an eyebrow. "You sure you ain't dead? You're lookin' like shit. Gonna need some real cleanin' up after all 'dis is over."

"Yeah, man," Mark replied. He was glad he had made it. It wasn't like him to leave without saying good bye to his wife and son first. "I still got a family to look after. That and you kids would be clueless without me to help you all out."

Jim looked at Yoko and they both gave a little laugh.

"Yeah, we're glad to have you back Mark."

"Now let's get out of here. The ladder is ready to go."


	17. The Doctor is In

Resident Evil Outbreak- Chapter 15

_**September 28**__**th**__**, 1998 1:39 AM**_

Alyssa kept trying not to think about what dying was like. She was trembling still and it was hard for her to focus on her survival at this point. She felt like giving up. Her body was already starting to feel cold and her shoes squeezed on her aching feet.

George looked around. The lobby was completely empty. The shutters were down on the door to the main corridors, so he let out a small curse under his breath. They couldn't be controlled from where they were and he wasn't quite sure if it was related to the security room on the first floor or not.

"So… where do we go now? It's not like this is familiar territory for me, bud." Alyssa tried to keep cool and be herself, but it wasn't working. She sounded off and her bitchy attitude was far behind.

"Well, it seems we'll have to go around. The first floor rooms are behind this shutter, so taking a detour is our only option."

"… and that detour is?"

"Well," George started to take a few heavy steps to the back of the lobby near a ransacked vending machine. There was a door also. Alyssa smiled.

"Alright, I'll go in first. You've got your girlfriend to worry about."

George blushed at that thought and felt something in his gut churn. But then again, he didn't correct Alyssa. Maybe he enjoyed that thought too much to shoot it down.

"You have a gun right?" he asked.

"Yeah, and plenty of ammo in here." Alyssa patted a side pack that had been concealed under her suit coat. She grinned, almost like a five-year-old with a new toy, and she took the handle of the door, the cold steel Beretta in her other hand.

George stood back as the door opened. It seemed empty so far.

Alyssa moved into the next area, the first thing being a large stairway in front of her. She took a few steps up it and raised her head, trying to see how many floors there were.

About three or four that she could see. She'd been to the hospital twice, so it was vague what she could remember of the layout, but George was definitely better informed than her.

Three more doors, one with the words "Security Office" on them in an embossed plastic sign, and the other unmarked and mysterious.

"Coast is clear, Doc."

George moved into the area and Alyssa shut the door behind him. George seemed to spot something. Alyssa saw a bulletin board, and she guessed that was his lucky find. What could possibly be on there that would be of use? She decided to follow him.

"See something?" she bitterly asked. He didn't phase at the question, but he did however raise a pointed finger to a map that was placed right on the bulletin board.

"Well, what a find!" Alyssa didn't hesitate to release the thumbtacks and take the map down. She held it out in front of her, scanning the tiny lines and dots that represented the complex. Apparently, there was a treatment room nearby and so were the first floor corridors.

"Perfect," she smirked. George looked at the map. Even though the whole place was engraved into his mind, he felt as if he hadn't been there in so long and the whole place seemed suddenly unfamiliar and new.

"The treatment room," Alyssa began, "What's in there?"

"Medical supplies. Anesthetics, disinfectants, serums, medications, and some bandages and small first aid treatment kits. That will be our first stop, as long as it isn't blocked off and no unsuspecting events barricade our way."

"Great, sounds like a plan," Alyssa cooed. She held her gun once more and took the lead, making a swoop to the door towards the back and under the stairs. She grabbed the handle again, feeling like she was in a bad cop flick, and she swung the door open at the next second, quickly scanning the area with her gun level to any human's height.

Still no trace of any monsters. Only some jumbled strewn garments coming out of a locker. Alyssa walked to the back of the locker room, making sure something wasn't waiting back there. Each step she took, the sound seemed to echo in her head, making her more aware of the noises around her.

There was another open locker, this time with a doctor's jacket and some other knick-knacks. George walked in and joined Alyssa. He raised an eye brow and walked over to the coat.

Lifting some of the fabric, he turned it so he could see whose coat it was. It was Crey's.

"I apologize," he whispered softly. After a moment of silence, he turned the coat back around and let it fall back to its ragged hanging position in the near empty locker. A small watch ticked quietly and George took a look at that soon after.

"It's a nice watch. A brand name one, but it's not for me."

"Are you almost done?"

"So sorry," George replied, setting the watch back down again. He was letting his mind wander too much. He had to realize once more that Cindy was still here, on his back, and she was possibly dying.

"Can we go now?" Alyssa whined. She was getting bad vibes from all the silence. It was too quiet for her likes. Normally, she would have rejoiced the eerie nothingness, but for a night like this, it was the thing that scared her the most.

"Yes, the treatment room is close now."

Alyssa made her way to the only unchecked door in the room and made one more evasive door check into the room. Another quick scan led her to find that this room was indeed empty. She sighed with relief and started to walk forwards.

As she was just getting to the middle of the room, a shattering noise burst out beside her. The next thing she knew, she was being grabbed by something or someone. She felt her arm being twisted in a direction unknown to its articulation and she cried out in pain and fear. Another new shock of pain, something sharp snapped on to her wrist.

She finally got a view of a zombie, right in front of her, its teeth gnawing at her arm. She screamed and just as she tried to raise her gun to shoot, George was running, speeding towards her, and she could see that Cindy was no longer on his back.

He pushed into the zombie, its weak muscles not being able to recover from the tackle as easily and it began to fall backwards, releasing the strong crusted hands from Alyssa's broken arm.

George looked at Alyssa in shock, finding that he had just slammed into the zombie with more strength then he thought he had. His eyes darted down to her arm which she was clutching and he took her by the other shoulder and looked regretful.

"Dammit. It's my fault, I'm sorry," Alyssa finally said. She felt her voice grow troubled and her voice start to feel sore in the back of her throat. Her eyes now felt as if they were on the verge of shedding tears and she tried to turn away from George.

"No. It's not your fault. It isn't, really."

"Yes it is. I'm too damn cocky. I…"

"Alyssa! Stop putting yourself down. You couldn't have expected such a course of actions would happen. No one can predict the future for sure, and you did very well considering the circumstances."

"No, I got bit."

George then felt something deeper, something sharp stab into his heart. Now that she had been in contact with another infected victim, it was entirely possible that the new DNA could increase the rate at which the zombification process would eventually take over.

He turned away, putting a hand to forehead. It was covered in dirt and perspiration, even as his eyes tightly shut, making creases in his tired epidermis. Alyssa could only stand and look down at her injured arm, wincing in pain if she tried to move it.

"Cindy… where's Cindy?" she quietly asked, trying to get all the attention back on the original track.

"She's over here."

"You really wanted to save me?"

George once again tried to hide his visage from Alyssa. He couldn't help but feel that he was cursed by his envy of nobility and valor. And now he was starting to think his actions were being controlled by his lust. Which wasn't helping the fact that he was in a major and crucial outbreak with two women.

"Why? I'm going to die anyways… why didn't…"

Alyssa started to feel angry. She could have died faster; she could have finally stopped worrying about being a living zombie time bomb.

She moved closer to George and raised the pistol to her head. She knew that if she just ended all this, she could make things a lot easier for George.

"Alyssa, what are you doing?!" George, suddenly not thinking right, raised his hand and slapped Alyssa in the face, causing her to drop the gun in shock.

The two stood there, watching each other, waiting for the opposite to say something. George could only keep his mouth open in awe of the savage action he had taken and Alyssa could only stay confused at the fact that maybe she wouldn't die.

"Alyssa, stop giving up!" George grabbed her shoulders, feeling her trembling body beneath his weathered palms. "You can't give up! What were you thinking?!"

"I don't wanna be one of those THINGS!" Alyssa scowled as she started to back away.

George stood still lowering his hazel optics until he spotted a certain object that sparked a completely different tree of thoughts. A sign, fallen and dismantled on the floor, cracked in half, but still easy to read. A white arrow, embossed along with two words.

Treatment Room.

"The treatment room."

"What--?"

"The treatment room is right there."

"… Really?"

"Yes, come on," and George went back to the room from before to fetch Cindy. Alyssa looked at the door, trying to imagine what must be running through George's head after all her actions. Did he really want her to live or was he just tired of seeing people die? He was after all a doctor. It was certain he had witnessed many deaths. But maybe there was something deeper.

"My arm," she moaned softly. All the activities of the night were suddenly catching up with her and making her tired. All she wanted was some rest. Hopefully, and soon enough, she could get some.

George was back with Cindy as soon as Alyssa walked into the Treatment Room.


End file.
